
Class "JL?J&.| 
Book. JC" 



K+llO 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



HISTORY FOR GRADED AND 
DISTRICT SCHOOLS 



BY. 



ELLWOOD WADSWORTH KEMP 

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, INDIANA STATE NORMAL 
SCHOOL, TERRE HAUTE, IND. 



Boston, U.S.A., and London 

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

1902 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CCmrSRESS, 

TW> Cop*td Reckived 

oct. 24 nm 

OLASS&^XXc No. 






t t * ♦ * 



>(ii * 






Entered at Stationers' Hall 



Copyright, 1902 
By ELLWOOD W. KEMP 

All rights reserved 



TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. CUSHING & CO., NORWOOD, MASS. 



Press Work by The Athenaeum Press, Cambridge, Mass. 



PREFACE 

" Truth is one ! 
And in all lands beneath the sun, 
Whoso has eyes to see may see 
The tokens of its unity." 

The purpose of this book is to present a framework 
of history for the graded and district schools ; that is, 
for children from six to about fifteen years of age. 

The effort has teen made to present the material in 
such connection throughout the grades that it would 
gradually develop in pupils' minds the idea of the unity 
of history, and thus finally lead them to feel that history 
is an unbroken stream of life, of which the present 
in general, and their lives in particular, constitute an 
important part. 

It is not thought that the material presented here for 
each grade will be entirely sufficient for teachers who 
have exceptional advantages for carrying on primary 
history work. It is intended as a general framework, 
furnishing, perhaps, the greater part of the material 
which the teacher having all the grades will be able to 
teach, but which the teacher having but one or two grades 
and good library advantages should use to build and 
to enlarge upon, according to particular circumstances. 

iii 



iv PREFACE 

It is hoped it will give both teachers and pupils a habit 
of investigation which will lead them to acquire much 
more material than is here presented. In teaching the 
subject the teacher should enlarge on the material here 
presented through poem, picture, map, narrative from 
other books, and the religious, social, political, indus- 
trial and educational life which immediately surrounds 
the pupil. It should be the teacher's constant method 
to turn historical material into simple historical prob- 
lems, and to guide the children to work out these prob- 
lems. If pupils are to derive most benefit from history 
they must live it, just as the people whom they are 
studying about lived it, go through with the struggles 
and triumphs (mentally of course in most cases) which 
these people passed through, and, by so doing, have 
their own historical views and feelings broadened and 
deepened. It is by work of this kind rather than by 
mere memory work that pupils are made historically 
minded, — that is, made to see and feel and live to 
some degree the whole sum of man's history. 

In primary history-teaching the use of story and 
biography is almost indispensable. With this in view, 
I have suggested at the close of each chapter appro- 
priate biographies to be studied to illustrate the general 
historical movement. But the biographies of eminent 
persons, who have in no small measure both made and 
guided the historical stream, cannot be understood apart 
from the stream itself. By teaching something of the 
general life of the people, as well as biographies of 
eminent men, it is my observation that children, even 
in the lower grades, may be given a general, simple 
and connected view of the stream of history itself, as 



PREFACE V 

well as some appreciation of the most notable char- 
acters who have taken part in guiding its course. 

It cannot be too strongly emphasized that it is abso- 
lutely impossible to do good work in history in the 
grades without reference books and good maps. They 
are as essential to both pupil and teacher as tools to a 
carpenter or compass to a navigator. At the end of 
each chapter a short list of reference books is given. 
Particular effort has been made to suggest such books 
as will present not alone the political, but also the social, 
artistic, religious, industrial and educational aspects of 
history. A short list has purposely been selected, think- 
ing that a long list would tend more to confuse than to 
assist the teachers for whom this book is intended. In 
the present state of knowledge on the part of teachers 
who are teaching history in the public schools a few 
well-chosen books will be of greater assistance than a 
large miscellaneous selection. 

Finally, I wish to say that the material presented in 
the body of this book has been mainly worked out in 
daily discussion and recitation during the past few 
years in my work with teachers in the Indiana State 
Normal School. It has been used by teachers in the 
public schools as a basis for grade work in the respec- 
tive grades, with what is believed to have been good 
results. It is in the hope to give the material a larger 
field to test its usefulness that it is now published. 

My thanks are due to scores of teachers in the public 
schools who have rendered great assistance by testing 
the material in their daily work in the schoolroom, and 
who have given valuable suggestions for adapting it to 
the stages of mental capacity of children in the respec- 



vi PREFACE 

tive grades. I shall regard it as a special favor if all 
such, and any others who may use the book, will call 
my attention to any errors that may be found in it, or 
make suggestions by which it may be rendered more 
useful. My especial thanks are due to Miss Belle 
Caffee, critic teacher in the First Primary Grade in the 
Training School Department of the Indiana State Nor- 
mal School, for invaluable assistance in developing and 
formulating the work for the first grade. 



ELLWOOD W. KEMP. 



Terre Haute, Indiana, 
1902. 



SUGGESTIONS TO PRIMARY 
TEACHERS 

It is pretty well agreed now among many teachers 
of primary history that something of the history of 
primitive man should be taught to little children. The 
lack of authentic historical material in sufficient amount 
to give a real insight into the actual life of the people 
and in such a form as to be easily available has led, 
however, to much discouragement on the part of teach- 
ers in attempting this work. It is hoped that the mate- 
rial here given, together with the suggestions for pre- 
senting the work, will help teachers to make this subject 
a moral force in the development of the children under 
their care. The facts of primitive life given here and in 
the author's " Outlines of History for Graded and Dis- 
trict Schools " have been very carefully selected with 
a view to their historical accuracy. But even if the 
facts taught are accurate, the teacher should keep her 
mind free from the idea that this or any. other material 
should be taught for the sake of mere individual facts, 
as well as from the even more harmful notion that any 
pleasing little story of primitive life, whether true to the 
spirit or to the facts of the time or not, will take the place 
of history proper. Of course little children are unable 
to study history by the abstract methods used in mature 



viii SUGGESTIONS TO PRIMARY TEACHERS 

life. The idea held by the author is that the child 
should have the material so presented to him as to 
awaken his historical imagination, so that he may live 
over again in imagination the life of the people whom 
he studies as they actually lived it. He should become 
the primitive man in spirit, meeting his problems with 
a realizing sense of the necessity of their solution, 
thinking out for himself under the guidance of the 
teacher ways of overcoming the difficulty, finally choos- 
ing the real method, — the method by which the 
human race itself made its successive steps in its 
progress. The child should then feel something of the 
freedom which resulted from overcoming the difficulties 
encountered. He will thus be studying history by living 
it. And by living it he will have his life transformed 
by it. The steps taken, then, in developing the history 
work in primary grades should conform very closely to 
the actual order of growth through which mankind 
passed in his various stages of development. 

Now, when anv advance has been made in civiliza- 

' ml 

tion, man has been forced by various needs and desires 
to make it. He has wrought out the improvement 
slowly, has made many mistakes and has had many 
periods of discouragement. Sometimes he might seem 
even to slip backward for a while ; but at last he takes 
a fresh breath, pushes forward with new energy, and 
feels the joy of overcoming difficulties and the greater 
freedom which results from his struggles and triumphs. 
So the child in reproducing this experience of the 
early steps of mankind within himself should first feel 
the need, that is, the limitation in life the early people 
felt ; second, should find a way by which this limitation 



SUGGESTIONS TO PRIMARY TEACHERS ix 

to his happiness and freedom may be removed, and 
third, as a result of removing the difficulty should him- 
self realize the larger and freer life which followed. We 
will use as one illustration of this method a lesson that 
was given in the first grade, dealing with the early Aryan 
people in the Volga valley, showing the improvement 
in the primitive plow. The children were led to " feel 
the need the Aryans felt" by imagining two Aryans 
plowing, one dragging the heavy, clumsy instrument, 
the other guiding and pushing it on from behind. They 
saw the poor results accomplished and felt the great 
fatigue resulting. With these primitive farmers, they 
wished for a better plow. Thinking out how this defect 
in Aryan life was to be remedied formed the second 
step of the lesson. One child suggested that a heavier 
stick should be used as a plow so the furrow would be 
deeper. This, another answered, would make it all the 
harder for the workers. One suggested that the plow 
should have an iron point. He was reminded by a 
practical little fellow that the early Aryans knew noth- 
ing about iron. Then another said, " They might put 
a sharp stone on for a point." All objections to this 
were shown to be insufficient ; then they were told that 
they were right, and that this was the first great step 
made by the Aryans in plowing ground. Realizing the 
effect of this improvement upon the early Aryans, 
formed the third step of the lesson. The children again 
imagined the same men plowing, but with the new plow. 
They saw the deeper furrow and reasoned that therefore 
the grain would grow better. They saw that the work 
was not so slow nor so difficult, and so concluded that 
they could either plow more ground and raise larger 



X SUGGESTIONS TO PRIMARY TEACHERS 

crops or use their leisure to improve in other direc- 
tions. 

Another similar lesson was given in the same grade 
on the invention of a boat. The first step was taken 
by leading the children to think of the Aryan family 
as having had only meat for food for many months. 
The weather was very warm, and they were tired of 
this monotonous fare. They were traveling southward 
along the west bank of the Volga River, which was 
here unusually narrow, swift and deep, when they saw 
on the other side many plum trees heavily laden with 
fruit. The men and older boys swam across and ate 
freely, but of course returned empty-handed. Arya, 
being but a young lad, was not allowed to go, and he 
with the rest of the little children beg for plums. The 
second step, thinking out a way to get the plums, was 
now taken. Arya wishes he could float a log over to 
the other side and get some plums. Once before he 
did float in this way a long distance down the river. 
So he runs down to the river now and tries it, but the 
log floats down stream with him in spite of his efforts 
to push himself across with a long pole. Finally the 
log turns over with him, and he is thrown into the 
water. A herdsman, who is returning from a second 
trip for plums, catches him and carries him out of 
the water. As soon as he gets his breath, Arya tells 
him what he has tried to do, and the man promises 
him that he will try to find some way for him to 
cross the river, get the fruit, and bring some back with 
him. Thus the children were led on to think of the 
herdsman's talk with three of his brothers, their select- 
ing a large tree, their work in cutting it down and 



SUGGESTIONS TO PRIMARY TEACHERS xi 

hollowing it out with stone axes and fire, their many 
attempts to float it, their final success, and at last the 
improvement from the long pole to the oars as a means 
of propulsion. The immediate effect of this invention is 
seen at once. But the children may be led not only to 
feel the joy of getting the fruit this time, but may be 
led also to realize something of the increased power 
over nature that was thus gained. 

In these two illustrations the first and second steps, 
i.e. first, feeling the need, and second, contriving a way 
to meet it, were emphasized. In the study of the 
domestication of the pig (for full outline, see " Outline 
of History for Graded and District Schools"), the third 
step, i.e. seeing the effect of this fact upon the insti- 
tutions and the lives of the people, was dwelt upon 
longer, the children reasoning out one effect after an- 
other, directed of course in their thought by the teacher. 
We see, thus, that a fact in history, studied in the pri- 
mary grades, may be studied in the light of time, place 
and its cause 'and effect, as it would be if studied by a 
mature person, the main difference being the relative 
degree to which the imaginative and the reasoning 
powers are employed in the two cases and the breadth 
of relation between facts which the teacher attempts 
to have the children see. The imagination in primary 
grades is given wings, the reason toddles along, com- 
fortably enjoying what the imagination pictures. This 
corresponds to the mental stage of development in 
which a young child lives and thinks. He is in the 
stage when he sees things more as particulars and as 
concrete things. Imagination is strong with him. By 
wise stimulation of this activity, interest in the subject, a 



xii SUGGESTIONS TO PRIMARY TEACHERS 

keen sense of the real life of early times, and the desire 
for larger and fuller knowledge of the whole course of 
man's life may finally be secured. 

Now, the imagination is not stimulated by general 
truths, but by particulars. So as a rule general state- 
ments should be avoided in teaching primary history, 
and much attention be given to the details of the 
everyday life of these primitive men. In many cases 
the life of the people may be represented concretely. 
The characteristic houses may be dug or built in the 
school yard or in the sand table by the children, who are 
pretending, for example, that they are primitive Aryans. 
When a new log is to be laid on the house, which the 
Aryan learned to make in the agricultural period, two 
or three of the children at a time may pretend to use 
great exertion in lifting it, though in reality it may be 
only a small stick easily held in one hand. The mortar 
for the cracks between the logs may be made with clay 
and straw and the crevices between the logs may be 
filled with it. The children should, in several different 
lessons at different times during the year, make the 
characteristic forms of primitive pottery and place on 
them the primitive decorations. There should be a 
place in the sand table where the pottery is burnt in 
imagination. A bonfire of sticks may be laid around 
just as the Aryans built their open ovens. A miniature 
closed oven may be made later in the year, and the 
wood and jars placed in their proper positions. When 
weaving is studied, the primitive loom should be con- 
structed and the children allowed to weave some coarse 
cloth out of heavy yarn. Spinning may be performed, 
the spindle and distaff being made easily by the teacher. 



SUGGESTIONS TO PRIMARY TEACHERS xiii 

Sometimes it is possible to have an actual object, such 
as the early Aryan people had, in the room. Birch 
branches may be brought in for the children to exam- 
ine, draw and paint. Beans and acorns are easily 
obtained. Native copper and arrowheads may be ob- 
tained with a little more trouble. When it is impossible 
or inadvisable to have in the schoolroom the material 
things such as the primitive people used, pictures may 
be used, or the lessons "acted out," e.g. when the wheat 
is to be thrashed it is imagined to be laid on the floor, 
and the children tramp over the space, occasionally 
pretending to throw up the grain, so that the chaff may 
be blown out by the wind. Then they go through the 
motions of collecting it in sheepskin bags, or in jars, 
which they pretend to carry with them. Or they may 
pretend to be oxen tramping out the grain. 

It will not be possible, probably, for the class to have 
the experience of fording a stream in their imaginary 
migrations, but they should " pretend " to do it, select- 
ing a shallow place in the river, feeling the pebbles 
on the bottom and the water as it rises higher and 
higher, and exercising great care not to step off in deep 
water. Experienced teachers will see that the work 
indicated in the respective grades following cannot 
be completed in a few months. Probably more than 
enough for a single grade is indicated in some cases, 
for schools will vary both as to length and facilities 
for doing the work. In no case should the advance be 
tedious nor should the points be worked over till they are 
threadbare ; but no teaching is good which rushes over 
points which pupils do not clearly see, and allows careless, 
haphazard work. The constant aim should be to have 



xiv SUGGESTIONS TO PRIMARY TEACHERS 

the children dwell on the details of the life of whatever 
people they are studying till, in a good measure, they 
come to see and feel and live that life themselves. It 
takes both time and careful work on the teacher's part 
to do this. Then, too, the early development of man- 
kind was slow, much slower than can be represented 
by the life of one man and his sons, as that of Arya 
and his sons as worked out here for the first grade. 
The working out of many details will aid in giving the 
children some realization of this length of time. 

All the material presented here for any one of the 
grades might be given to the children in a few days, 
but they would get very little value from such work. 
Indeed, it is not intended that the stories and narra- 
tives here presented be read to the children word for 
word in the primary grades, or that they should be 
told in just the form here given. It is only meant to 
present illustrative and suggestive material for intro- 
ducing the teacher and pupil to the great facts and 
actors in human history, which they may clothe with 
the details of their natural surroundings and come to 
know intimately. The particular material here pre- 
sented should not be allowed to hinder the teacher's 
own originality in matter or method or the spontaneity 
of the recitation. It is of course always very impor- 
tant that historical facts rather than pretty fancies be 
given. But too much emphasis cannot be given to 
the truth that no body of facts taught will be valuable 
work in history till they are seen and felt and lived by 
the children in some reasonable measure as they oc- 
curred in the life of the people being studied. 



School History 



FOR 



Graded and District Schools 



FIRST-GRADE WORK 

Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, 
Who have faith in God and Nature, 
Who believe that in all ages 
Every human heart is human, 
That in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings 
For the good they comprehend not, 
That the feeble hands and helpless, 
Groping blindly in the darkness, 
Touch God's right hand in that darkness 
And are lifted up and strengthened : — 
Listen to this simple story. 

Longfellow. — The Song of Hiawatha. 

The aim of the first-grade work in history, as here presented, is 
to help the pupil to live in imagination the life of the Aryan race 
when it was making its first steps toward civilization ; that is, while 
it was passing from the life of a nomadic people along the Volga on 
the steppes of southeastern Russia to a more settled life, learning 
its first lessons in the art of agriculture. During this time, according 
to the theory now most generally held, the western branch moved 
down toward the Danube, and thence spread over southern and 
western Europe ; the eastern moved southeastward and finally settled 
in India and Persia. In order to make this life seem more real to 
the children, the following sketch is presented, in which the early 
Aryan stage of culture is embodied in particular persons and inci- 
dents, as nearly in accordance with historical truth as the somewhat 
meager facts known of early Aryan life renders possible. The boy, 
Arya, is taken in southeastern Russia as the type of the primitive 
Aryan people before they separated into the seven great branches of 
Aryans (Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, Slavs). 
He is the center of life throughout the nomadic period, when the 
Aryans were living (probably) on the steppes of Russia, depending 

3 



4 SCHOOL HISTORY 

mainly for their water upon the river Volga. The life here is very 
simple, with little or no division into distinct institutions, and with 
no well-defined national characteristics. A diversity of possibilities 
is hinted at in the sketch in the different traits of character of the 
sons of Arya (see author's " Outline of History for Graded and 
District Schools, 1 ' Ginn & Co.). But not until Arya's death do the 
different characteristics of the sons become so antagonistic as to 
prevent them from living together. Then the sons separate into two 
groups, the Asiatic, led by Indus and Parsa, travel southeastward 
toward India, and the European, led by Hellenus, Latinus, Celta, 
Teuto and Slava, spread over southern, central and western Europe. 
These sons establish separate house communities, each exhibiting 
the dominant characteristic of its head. Thus they are intended to 
prefigure to a degree the different nationalities which developed later 
into the great Aryan peoples, — Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, 
Celts, Teutons and Slavs. We follow their life as they change 
slowly from nomads into primitive farmers, and before we leave 
them they have advanced well into the agricultural stage of life. 
The story, given largely in outline, is intended to be expanded and 
illustrated by many details which will suggest themselves to the live 
teacher. 



ARYA AND HIS SEVEN SONS 

Although we do not believe in riding on the backs 
of fairies, as people long ago did, and we have no magic 
wand to help us to get to far-away lands and far-away 
times when old people and young, too, played and acted 
in many ways much like children, yet our imagination 
will take us to the land of Long Ago, where we may 
see our forefathers — the Aryans — as they lived their 
simple, daily lives ; and there for a time we will live 
and work and play and struggle with them. Perhaps 
thus we may be able to feel something of what they 
have done for us in gaining a little control and under- 
standing of nature, which to them seemed so savage, 
and which, as they thought, often grew angry with them 
and tried to hurt them ; but which we now know never 
gets angry, but gives us the storm, the wind, the snow 
and the sunshine, that the world may be all the more 
beautiful and rich with fruit, and grain, and flower. 1 

Now we are to imagine that we are really living in 
that far-off misty time. As far as the eye can see on 
all sides, stretches a beautiful grass-covered plain. Near 
us flows a broad, shallow river, with gentle murmur, 

1 A good device to use here in developing the idea of far-away time in 
the pupil's mind is a journey backward through time, noticing great events 
of history as the journey is made. See Jane Andrews. — Ten Boys on the 
Road from Long Ago to Now. 

5 



6 SCHOOL HISTORY 

southward. Its banks are concealed by graceful willow 
trees that grow even to the water's edge, while tall reeds 
grow far out into the river. We are able to trace the 
course of the river far into the distance, both north and 
south, by the shining silver birch trees which rise one by 
one among the willows. These willows and birches, so 
close to the river, are the only trees in sight. The sun 
is low in the west. The hush of solitude is all around, 
except that afar off we hear the mournful cooing of a 
solitary dove. Suddenly from out the west come lowing 
cattle toward the stream. Now all of them disappear 
down one of the narrow and deep gullies that cut the 
plain, but which make no apparent break in the level 
expanse of grass as one looks over the vast prairie. 
Up they come again, making straight for the river. 
We watch them as they push their way through the 
willows and reeds and take deep draughts from the 
quiet stream. So intent have we been on the cattle 
that we are startled to see near us on the bank a wild- 
looking man, who has been tending and following the 
herd. He is tall, straight and strong, with bold, fear- 
less eyes, broad chest and sinewy arms. His skin is 
fair. His light-brown hair falls in tangled masses to 
his shoulders; his clothing consists mainly. of a cow's 
hide thrown over the shoulders and gathered in at the 
waist by a girdle. Shoes, also made of hide, protect 
his feet. By his side stands a huge bull dog, atten- 
tively watching the cattle. The herdsman, trusting his 
cattle for the moment to his faithful dog, turns slowly 
to the west. The great sun god is bestowing his part- 
ing blessing on the earth ; his beams of light extend 
like a gentle hand over stream and grassy plain. Peace 



ARYA AND HIS SEVEN SONS 7 

rests over all. The all-embracing Sky-father bends his 
protecting arch of blue over all his children. The 
power, peace and beauty of the scene strangely stir 
the feelings of this child of nature, and his heart goes 
up in mute thanksgiving and prayer to these, his gods. 
While he stands thus, the dove we heard in the distance 
gives its mournful coo close at hand. He grows pale as 
he listens, and his superstitious anxiety increases as the 
bird flies just in front of him ; for to them the dove is 
a bird of ill omen, and he believes that when one flies 
across his path it is sure to bring him bad luck. At 
this moment the sun, as if in answer to his prayer and 
in comforting assurance of his protection, throws across 
the western sky a glorious band of light. The sturdy 
herdsman, seeing in this the smiling face of his great 
sun god, turns away comforted, feeling that surely the 
gods of light and strength are stronger than those of 
evil. He gives a loud call to the cattle, the great know- 
ing dog walks intelligently toward them, and they come 
slowly and reluctantly from the water. He drives them 
to a part of the plain where the grass is very long and 
green and leaves them there in charge of the faithful 
dog. He then makes his way homeward. Homeward ? 
Yes. But there is no house that we can see as we 
follow him, — only a number of rude wagons placed 
end to end so as to form a large circle, in the center 
of which are the glowing embers from a great open 
bonfire. Men, women and children, dressed much like 
the herdsman, in shaggy skins of animals, come and go 
in their work, dressing skins, carrying wood for the fire, 
carrying water, milking, crushing wheat, or sit on the 
ground idly talking or watching. Supper is being pre- 



8 SCHOOL HISTORY 

pared. The air is laden with odor of roast beef. Cir- 
cling around the fire are great pieces of beef, roasting 
on the ends of sticks which have been driven slantwise 
into the ground. Occasionally flames rise from the em- 
bers or the burning logs and burn the meat. A gray- 
headed man, dressed in better clothing than the others 
and giving orders with an air of authority, is waited on 
submissively by any who happen to come near, as if he 
were the ruler or chief. Indeed he is. He is known as 
the " housemaster," and his word is absolute law to every 
one in this great family or household, which numbers 
over sixty people. Near him, at his right, is a fine, 
brave-looking man, his oldest son, who will succeed him 
as housemaster. And by his side is his youngest son, a 
boy about ten years old, the strongest, brightest and 
bravest little fellow in the whole camp. This is Arya. 
Arya is watching his mother prepare the meal for his 
father, and he smacks his lips as she sprinkles some 
dirty coarse salt over it ; for salt is so scarce and they 
know so little how to make it, that it is the greatest 
luxury and is eaten only by the few honored ones of the 
family. The mother tells her boy of the dangers the 
father underwent when he traded some fine cattle for a 
small skin of salt, and how it had almost cost him his 
life because of the treachery of one of the traders. 
Then the mother takes out from under some hot ashes, 
another luxury, which only the chief and his sons can 
afford, — a hard wheaten cake. It is unleavened and 
unsalted, and made simply by baking the dough made 
from roughly crushed wheat mixed with water. These 
early people have not yet learned to cultivate the land, 
and wild grain is very scarce. When the meal is pre- 



ARYA AND HIS SEVEN SONS 9 

pared, the family does not sit down to a table with a 
snowy cloth and pretty dishes, as we at home do, nor do 
they begin the meal with quiet manners or thanks to 
their gods. The men roughly help themselves as soon 
as they think the meat sufficiently roasted. They bite 
off great mouthfuls which they swallow with little chew- 
ing. The women and children look on while the men 
gorge themselves. Arya looks so wistful that his father 
cuts off smaller pieces with a huge knife of stone and 
gives to him and his three little brothers. The mother 
and sister get no meat at all. The boys snatch their 
chunks and gnaw on them savagely much like the men. 
Though the outside is browned and even burned, the 
inside is still a bright red and almost raw. But that 
does not matter. Indeed, when wood and reeds are 
scarce or water-soaked, all eat their meat raw. The 
women who have been milking bring milk in large jars 
and leathern bottles. The men raise these to their 
mouths and drink deep. They drink and eat great 
quantities of food, crack the bones after gnawing the 
flesh from them, suck the marrow out as the choicest 
morsel of meat and gorge themselves until they can 
eat no more. The women and children must eat the 
scraps that are left. 

So supper is over at last. There are no beautiful 
finger-bowls or dainty napkins ; no towels for the face 
or brushes for the teeth ; no table to clear or dishes to 
wash. Not very particular nor very cleanly are these 
early Aryan children of the plains. If it were not for 
the exercise in which they engage, and the abundance 
of free and wholesome air they breathe, the dirt in 
which they live would breed disease. But they are a 



IO SCHOOL HISTORY 

healthy, fine race of people of whom the herdsman 
we first saw, and who has been eating as ravenously as 
the rest, is a noble type. 

The sun sinks now below the horizon, and Night covers 
all with a mantle of darkness. It is time to go to sleep. 
Most of the family lie down on the ground with no cover- 
ing. They watch the stars as they come out one by one, 
thinking that the Sky, the greatest of all their gods, is 
opening his eyes to watch over the world through the 
night. Some, more tender than others, wrap themselves 
in skins, as the spring nights are still chilly. Others, 
who need better shelter, among whom are mothers 
with little babies, creep in under the wagons. The 
barking of the dogs does not disturb them. Even the 
howl of the wolves does not awaken them unless it 
be near. The frogs have begun their nightly lullaby. 
These children of nature fall asleep, trusting to the 
protection of the Sky-father until the Sun-god lifts up 
his rosy fingers once more in the morning to bless them. 
Rising one by one, they give themselves a long yawn 
and a hearty stretch and so are ready for breakfast — no 
combing of hair, or washing of face and hands, or brush- 
ing of the teeth, or putting on of fresh clothes. They 
do not realize that they are dirty and untidy, but they 
do appreciate something of the glory and beauty of the 
Dawn, who comes, a beautiful god, ever fresh, clean 
and bright to welcome them. This lesson thus held 
continually before them by nature may slowly teach 
them to be cleaner and purer. Breakfast is much like 
the meal we have already seen. They are in no great 
hurry after eating, but, one by one, most of the men 
go to look after the cattle. Arya is allowed to help 



ARYA AND HIS SEVEN SONS II 

drive the great herd to the grassy plain, and very proud 
and important he feels as he strides along after his 
father, and watches the great dog keep the stragglers 
from going astray. 

The mother's work, like that of all the women, is harder 
and more constant. Women in this far-away time are 
the slaves of the men. They do all the heavy work, such 
as carrying water and wood, making and keeping up the 
fire, cooking, milking, skinning and dressing slain ani- 
mals, cleaning, drying and tawing the hides, making 
mantles, shoes and bottles from the leather, spinning, 
weaving, and gathering and crushing the wild grain for 
bread ; in fact, everything which requires constant toil. 

To-day, Arya's mother has planned to make a fine 
new mantle for her husband ; for in the fierce fight that 
he and the other men had with the wolves only a few 
nights before to keep them from the cattle, his sheep- 
skin mantle was torn almost to pieces. Though summer 
is coming, the new garment is to be made of wool, 
for neither flax nor cotton is yet known to these early 
wanderers. The mother walks to the wagon, takes out 
a great armful of wool and looks for the spindle and dis- 
taff. They cannot be found ; for they had fallen out of 
the wagon one day unnoticed, when the people were 
moving southward on the river for better pasture. This 
will delay her spinning, for new tools must be made. 
So leaving the babies in charge of Arya's sister, a girl 
eight years old, she goes to the nearest birch tree, breaks 
off a smooth limb, cuts it to the proper length, trims off 
the twigs, splits it down some distance, and spreads it 
apart by placing a wedge or stick in the split, so that 
when it is dry, the halves will remain apart, and form a 



12 SCHOOL HISTORY 

fork to hold the wool. This is the distaff. This done, 
another piece of the limb is taken and shaped to taper at 
each end. Near each end a small notch is cut. Then 
she walks a long distance northward to a clay bed she saw 
as the family passed that way to these new pasture lands. 
Fortunately, the clay is moist. She pats some of it 
around the stick in the middle, so that when given a 
twirl, it will turn round and round, something like a top, 
and so twist the thread fastened in the notch. This is 
the spindle, and when the clay is dry and the halves of 
the distaff set, the spinning machine is complete. The 
next day is begun the spinning for the new mantle. 
Tying a belt of sheepskin around her waist, she sticks 
the end of the distaff under it, slips a large handful 
of wool from the roll at her side in the cleft, and 
begins to twist a small bit of it around and around 
in her fingers until she has a thread. This is then 
tied to the end of the spindle, to which she gives a 
swift twirl. It pulls down the woolen thread, which 
is ever growing longer, and helps to twist it. The 
thread grows swiftly under the skillful hands of the 
woman, and the spindle soon rests upon the ground. 
It is quickly picked up, the thread wound around and 
around above the weight and fastened securely in the 
notch. Many times the same act is repeated, until the 
spindle is full on both ends. The yarn is then wound 
off and the spindle filled again. All day she spins, and 
day after day, until enough yarn is made, of which to 
weave a mantle. 

But before this is woven into the long straight strip 
much like a strip of carpet which is to form the principal 
article of clothing for her husband, her duties call her to 



ARYA AND HIS SEVEN SONS 1 3 

another occupation. Almost all the pottery belonging 
to the household has been broken in fragments by the 
mad rush of an angry bull that had escaped from a 
herdsman and had made its way into the midst of the 
camp. New jars must be made at once ; so Arya's 
mother, the leader among the women, with three others, 
trudges off again through the dewy grass to the clay bed. 
They talk little to each other as they walk and later as 
they work, for in fact these almost slave women have 
but little to talk about. But their few words are aided 
by smiles and frowns and movements of the head, arms 
and body. They are talking of their work for the 
day. Arya's mother explains that one of the pieces of 
pottery she will make will be a large one, large enough 
to hold enough grain to make the housemaster his 
favorite wheaten cakes, and one which they may take 
with them in the wagon as they move from place to 
place. At last they reach the level stretch of barren 
clay which is still wet from recent rains. Select- 
ing a place where the clay seems particularly fine 
and free from sticks and stones, they kneel upon the 
ground and begin at once to dig up the clay with 
horn and bone knives, and slowly to shape their clay 
jars. They must be very careful to free the clay from 
lumps and to have it throughout equally smooth and 
soft. If they do not, the jars will burst while burning. 
The younger women are content to shape simple ball- 
shaped jugs which will be used for carrying and hold- 
ing water or milk. But Arya's mother, who is very 
skillful, makes her large jar with an artistic outward 
flare from the neck. With a small round bone she 
makes it beautiful with slant parallel lines by pressing 



14 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the bone lengthwise into the stiff moist clay, and with 
the round end of a small stick she has brought, adds 
rows and groups of dots. You see even in this earliest 
time people began to try to make beautiful things as 
well as those which were useful. Then she places her 
jar where later the fire will be made for burning it, and 
afterward helps the other women to form their pieces 
more regularly and beautifully. After this is done, 
she continues with her own work, shaping with firm 
skillful fingers water jugs and pots. 

Many hours do these busy women work until a number 
of variously shaped vessels are drying in the clear air 
and warm sun. Then they rise rather stiffly, and look 
anxiously about the sky for signs of rain. For if rain 
should come before the pottery is ready for use, the 
day's work will be lost. The Sky-father is kind to his 
children this time, and wears a smiling face. When the 
pottery has dried sufficiently the women carry sticks, 
bound in great bundles, on their backs to the place of 
burning. Last of all is brought a jar in which, care- 
fully protected by ashes, are some live coals from the 
household fire, for this was thousands of years before 
there were any matches. The fuel is laid around the 
circle of jars some little distance away and is then 
lighted. The fire is attended to with great care ; for 
should it die down in places or the heat within in any 
way become irregular, or should a burning stick fall 
inward on the jars, the result would be ruin. When the 
fire is burning steadily, it is left in care of one of the 
women. Day and night for four days it is watched and 
fed, and is then allowed to die down gradually. When 
thoroughly cooled, the jars are anxiously examined by 



ARYA AND HIS SEVEN SONS 1 5 

the women. Some of them are cracked throughout, and 
the sides fall apart when moved. Some have warped so 
in the burning that they are useless. Others are badly 
smoked. But there are left others in which the women 
take much pride. Arya's mother loses not a single 
piece, and her work is much admired. To them, per- 
haps the dots and lines on the jar seemed as beautiful 
as a beautiful plate or a beautiful piece of Royal 
Worcester does to us. 

Day by day do the women of the household work ; 
day by day do the men watch the cattle and protect 
them from wolves. Day by day do the little children 
play on the plains, imitating their elders, learning to do 
their work and learning to worship the Sun, Sky, Storm 
and other gods of nature. And we day by day will 
work and play with them as we go on studying about 
them, and learn with them the lesson of their slow and 
painful struggle for a little happier and better life than 
that of wandering herdsmen. 

Note to Teachers. — Let the children live thus with the Aryans, 
seeing them in the natural environment in which they were placed, 
following them in their occupations, solving their problems, feeling 
their joys and sorrows ; above all appreciating the sense of progress 
which they slowly made, and the joy of victory over nature, which 
they felt as they slowly conquered it and made it serve them. As 
the life on the plains is typified by Arya, and as children think 
concretely rather than in generals, let the incidents and changes of 
the nomadic period center around him. He develops from a child 
into a brave, venturesome boy ; at nineteen he captures a wife. 
Soon he has a large family of boys and girls to whom the interest 
of the children may be gradually transferred and who, in the agri- 
cultural period, become the centers of interest. He, at forty-five 
by the death of his father becomes the housemaster. The environ- 
ment of the Aryans gradually changes during their enforced prog- 



16 SCHOOL HISTORY 

ress southward, bringing into their life new elements, unheard-of 
hardships and dissension. The firm rule of Arya keeps the house- 
hold united until, in old age, he is killed in a conflict with a neigh- 
boring household. These and the later developments in their life 
are not worked out here for want of space. The facts concerning 
the plants, animals, soil, climate, and so forth, with which the early 
Aryans were surrounded, together with an outline further developing 
the life of "Arya" and Arya's sons and their households, are given 
in the author's work, " An Outline of History for Graded and District 
Schools," a work supplementary to this one published by Ginn & 
Co., Boston. From this Outline, the teacher may select additional 
material which may fit her special needs and the condition of the 
school in which she teaches. 

References 

Schroeder and Jevons : Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan 
Peoples ; Griffin & Co., London. This book was taken as the 
chief authority on most questions of primitive Aryan life. It is 
written for the mature student, not for children. 

Jane Andrews : Ten Boys on the Road from Long Ago to 
Now ; Ginn & Co., Boston. The theory presented in the first story 
in this book of the Asiatic origin of the Aryan Race is not the one 
now most generally supported by scholars, but the general spirit of 
the stories will be found to be very helpful to the beginning teacher. 

Butterworth : The Development of Industrial Art ; Govt. Print- 
ing Office, Washington. This gives excellent illustrations of such 
articles as the plow, wagon, harrow, loom, etc., in their different 
stages of development from the extremely primitive to the modern form. 

Clodd: The Childhood of the World; Humbolt Library Pub., 
N.Y. 

Tylor: Primitive Culture; Holt & Co., N.Y. 

Starr : First Steps in Human Progress ; Jennings & Pye, Cin- 
cinnati. 

Lubbuck: Prehistoric Times; Appleton & Co., N.Y. 

Mason : Woman's Share in Primitive Culture ; Appleton & Co., 
N.Y. 

Keary : The Dawn of History ; Scribners Sons, N.Y. 

Kemp : Outline of History for Graded and District Schools ; 
Ginn & Co., Boston. 



SECOND-GRADE WORK 

The aim of the second-grade work is first to give pupils glimpses 
of some of the most characteristic features of the countries and peoples 
living in the two great Oriental river valleys — the Nile and the 
Tigro-Euphrates ; and second, something of the life of the Jews and 
the Phoenicians lying between these two valleys. The Phoenicians 
and Jews stood, as it were, yoking the two river-valley civilizations 
together. The narrow strip of land fringing the eastern extremity 
of the Mediterranean was favorably situated for spreading the East- 
ern civilization westward around the borders of the sea. This was 
the chief mission of the Phoenician civilization. 

The material which follows for this grade is intended merely as 
suggestive threads for the teacher. She will herself come into 
touch with the life and spirit of the people, and help pupils to do so 
much more successfully, by the careful and continuous use of one 
or more of the reference books given at the end of each story. 



17 



HOW KUFU LIVED AMONG THE OLD 
EGYPTIANS 

Many, many years before the Christ Child was born, 
there lived in far-away Egypt a little boy named Kufu. 

The country in which he lived lies far to the east of 
us, and consists only of a long, narrow valley shut in 
by high cliffs of white limestone. At its greatest width 
it is about thirty miles, a distance which one could 
travel by horseback from morning until noon, but one 
would have to travel all day from sunrise to sunset on 
a very fast train, to go over its entire length, which is 
five hundred and seventy miles. Toward the south the 
valley gradually grows narrower, and oftentimes at the 
narrowest places it is only a mile or so wide. 

Through the center of this narrow valley winds the 
famous river, Nile. Along its banks great patches of 
tall, slender papyrus reeds lift their feathery heads full 
ten feet above the water, and from its bosom spring the 
beautiful red, blue and pink cups of the lotus plant, 
surrounded by its umbrella-like leaves. 

On either side of the Nile the country in the valley 
spreads out like a summer garden — always fresh and 
green. In this country no one has ever seen a snow- 
flake, or watched the great banks of clouds, or often 
heard the raindrops fall ; for there are no clouds, and it 
seldom rains and never snows. It is always summer. 



HOW KUFU LIVED 19 

But you will ask, " How can it always be so fresh and 
green without rain or snow ? " I will tell you. Every 
year the Nile gets so full that it runs over its banks, 
spreading out over the valley. When it goes back, in 
September, it leaves a rich mud or loam, and in this 
loam the Egyptians raise abundant crops. 

But what causes the Nile to act in this strange man- 
ner ? For many years it was a great mystery. Now 
we know that away to the south, in the high mountains 
where the Nile begins, it rains very much at one time 
of the year, and the little streams rush down into 
the Nile, bringing with them rich loam from the moun- 
tain sides. The good Nile carries it to the eager people, 
spreads it over their narrow valley, sinks back into its 
bed again, and seems to smile kindly upon the people 
as they sow and reap enormous crops. The Ancient 
Egyptians did not know this. They believed in many 
gods, and to them it seemed that their great god Osiris 
lived in the Nile and ruled over it, and that it was from 
him that their abundance came. 

Sometimes, however, away to the south not much 
water falls. Then the Nile overflows but a short dis- 
tance from the banks, and famine is sure to follow. To 
the ancient people this meant that Osiris was angry with 
them, and many were the sacrifices offered to appease 
him. 

Shut in as they were by the blue Mediterranean on 
the north, by the great desert which lay beyond the 
high cliffs on either side, and by the rocks and water- 
falls of the Nile on the south, the Egyptians had little 
to do with the outside world for a long time, and con- 
sequently did not become, until they were a very old 



20 SCHOOL HISTORY 

nation, either great warriors or traders. But they did 
become great in other ways, and by hearing the life of 
Kufu you may find out something of what they were. 

You will be interested in hearing of Kufu, for he was 
the son of a king, and lived in the ancient time. It 
meant much to be son of a king in olden time when 
only the sons of kings, nobles and warriors had any 
chance to obtain an education or in any way rise in the 
world. The ancient Egyptians thought that their king 
was a child of a god, and, after his death, would become 
a god. They regarded him as half divine, and were 
willing that he should own Egypt and give the land to 
them as he saw fit. The peasants worked the farms, 
giving what was raised to the king and accepting back 
from him any compensation that he offered. The prop- 
erty, time and labor of the Egyptian were at the dis- 
posal of his king. 

One year when the Nile had been very full and the 
busy season was at its height, Kufu went with his 
father's scribe to visit the farms in order to take 
account of the amount of wheat, barley, and millet 
raised and to watch the peasants at their work. 

Let us follow them on this trip. They sail away in 
a little boat made of the strong reeds of the papyrus, 
down the Nile and then up the canals to the farms. 
The hot sun is far to the south, so the trip is pleasant, 
and Manetho, the scribe, rows among the tall reeds and 
hunts birds with the throw-stick, while Kufu gathers the 
beautiful lotus, for he loves it as dearly as you do the 
roses. 

His visits at the farms are very pleasant. He rides 
on the backs of the donkeys over the great high banks 



HOW KUFU LIVED 21 

of dirt called dikes. These dikes are the great road- 
ways between the cities during the time of floods. 

On the hillsides, out near the cliffs, are many fields 
which the Nile does not reach even though there is a 
great overflow. To water these, the peasants lead the Nile 
in many small ditches to the hillside. Then up the 
hillside they dig rows of wells, somewhat resembling the 
steps of stairs or terraces. Small canals lead the water 
from the last wells on top of the hill to all parts of the 
field. To take the water up the hillside, two tall posts 
are set up on opposite sides of each well, and on top of 
these a horizontal bar is laid and fastened. On the 
middle of this bar a long tough pole is balanced. One 
end of the pole has a heavy lump of clay fastened to it, 
while to the end that hangs over the well is fastened 
a long three-cornered bucket, by means of a strong 
hemp cord. All this arrangement for drawing water is 
much like the " well-sweep" and "old oaken bucket" 
which our fathers and grandfathers used to draw water 
when they were children. 

You may draw a picture of a hillside with the wells 
and well-sweeps, and we will also work out a picture 
of the wells in the sand. Kufu loves to stand in the 
cool shade of the palms and watch the peasants draw 
the bucket from the lower well and empty it into the 
next higher. How the pole creaks on the bar in tune 
with the peasants' drowsy singsong ! Kufu thinks that 
it is a pretty song even though it has not much tune. 
They sing it as they slowly and lazily lower the bucket 
and draw it up with sparkling water. 

Everywhere in the fields are peasants planting and 
harvesting. Some are plowing the tough loam with a 



22 SCHOOL HISTORY 

rude plow made of a bent stick, while others are 
breaking the clods with short wooden hoes. The hoe- 
blade and handle are the same length, about two feet. 
The blade is narrow and spoon-shaped with a groove in 
its sides around which a strong rope is fastened. With 
this rope, the blade may be brought closer to the handle. 

We see no harrows or steel plows such as we have 
to-day, and the grain that is being sown, we call wheat, 
barley, or millet, but they call it corn. 

Kufu loves to drive the sheep around in circles over 
the fields, thus tramping the newly sown grain into the 
soil. When the grain is ripe, he watches the reapers 
cut it with rude sickles, and then rides the laden don- 
keys to the threshing floor to see it threshed. Kufu 
has never heard the whistle or puff of the engine, or the 
hum of the threshing machine when at work, but he 
enjoys the harvest greatly. He helps the peasants 
comb the corn; that is, he pulls the heads from the 
stalks by means of a comb which is something like our 
bootjack — the teeth of the comb corresponding to the 
groove in which the boot fits. The wheat is then spread 
out over the circular threshing floor, and the donkeys 
driven over it. Sometimes a donkey gets stubborn. 
Then Kufu laughs because the peasant must pull him 
around. 

After the corn is cleaned by throwing it up so the 
wind can blow the chaff away, it is taken to the great 
grain barns or granaries which have been built by the 
slaves out of brick, and kept and used as it is needed. 
Far away to the east the people came to Egypt for 
corn in time of famine. You remember Joseph's breth- 
ren came from Canaan to Egypt for corn, and in this 



HOW KUFU LIVED 



23 



way Joseph found his father whom he had not seen for 
many years. 

Vacation is over with the harvest, and Kufu returns 
home with Manetho, just in time to enter school. 

For a large part of the year he attended the school 
which was conducted in his father's palace. Here were 
assembled boys from all over Egypt who wanted to 
become scribes. They wished to read in order to learn 
the words of the gods, to write that they might record 
the king's deeds, and to count and measure that they 
might keep the king's accounts, and measure off his 
lands; for when the Nile overflowed, it often washed 
the landmarks away, — new marks must then be made. 
The scribe received a higher education than any one in 
Egypt excepting, of course, the one who was to be king. 

Kufu's teacher was very strict, but Kufu did not 
object. The boys all worked diligently, for they feared 
that the god Thoth would become angry and keep them 
from learning, if they were idle. 

Their copy-books were rolls of paper made from the 
pith of the papyrus reed, which was four or five inches 
in diameter. Kufu made his own paper. He cut the 
pith into long thin slices, then placed them side by side. 
Crosswise on top of these he placed other slices, 
moistened them with Nile water, and pressed them until 
they were dry. He then trimmed the edges, polished 
the paper, and made it into rolls. 

The boys spent much time in learning to draw. In 
writing they used pictures instead of signs to express 
their ideas. Later they combined pictures just as we 
do letters, to make words. 

Kufu, since he is to become the king, has many more 



24 SCHOOL HISTORY 

things to learn than the other boys, and he must go to 
the temple to receive part of his education. The king 
is the high priest of Egypt. He alone, as they think, 
is a child of a god ; he alone can talk with the gods ; 
he alone can worship in the Holy of Holies, the inner- 
most room of the temple. So Kufu must learn to offer 
sacrifices, to lead processions, and to chant long prayers. 

Let us notice the temple to which Kufu goes. It is 
meant to resemble the world, and to honor their greatest 
god, Osiris. The Egyptians had a peculiar view re- 
garding the world ; yet it is not strange that they 
should have had it. They thought that the world was 
flat, that it was longer than wide, that great, tall pillars 
held it up, and that the sky, like a great iron bowl, 
covered it. Notice the ways in which they sought to 
make their temple resemble the world. It generally 
faced the river's edge, but stood back some distance 
from it. It was surrounded by a high and thick stone 
wall. It consisted of alternate rooms and courts, con- 
nected by a hallway and large gateways or pylons. 
The rooms were one story high and covered by a flat 
roof. The stones of which the temple was built were 
very large and heavy. They make us think that the 
Egyptians meant that the temple should last forever. 

About the temple, but within the outer walls, were 
pretty flower gardens, ponds filled with the beautiful 
lotus and tall papyrus, gardens with vegetables, and 
great yards of geese, birds, and fine cattle. These 
things were raised to be used when offering sacrifices to 
the god of the temple. 

Leading from the river's edge up to the gateway of 
the temple was a smoothly paved walk. On both sides 



HOW KUFU LIVED 25 

of it were rows of sphinxes, — stone figures with the 
body of a lion and a human face. It is thought they 
signified protection. The walk was called the avenue 
of sphinxes. It was bordered on both sides with rows 
of palm trees. 

The tall solid stone doorway, or pylon, of the temple 
was sixty feet high, about as high as one of our tele- 
graph poles. On each side of it were two broad, thick 
stone towers, higher than the pylon and used sometimes 
as observatories. In front of the pylon were two 
obelisks, or shafts of stone, rising from a small square 
base to a. point one hundred feet high. They were 
much like the Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park, New 
York ; or the Washington Monument at Washington 
City. On the four highly polished faces of the obelisks 
were carved pictures of the king performing wonderful 
deeds. 

The most wonderful part of the temple was the 
great hypostyle hall, — that is, a hall having a large 
ceiling resting upon many rows of great columns. 
These columns were almost as high as the great 
pylons in front of the temple, and were so thick that 
three little boys, hand in hand, could not reach around 
them. They were twelve feet in circumference. The 
capitals or tops of some of the columns spread out like 
great inverted bells ; others were like the birds, or 
flowers of the beautiful lotos. The capitals alone were 
twice as long as you are high and were wider than the 
tall shafts on which they rested. The base, or bottom, 
of the column curved inward like a great bulb, and beau- 
tiful green leaves bordered it. The whole column was 
colored bright yellow, red, and green. 



26 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Over the surface of the huge stone columns were 
carved pictures. They showed the king and his court, 
the scribes at work, farmers sowing and reaping, and 
slaves building. Like great story-books, they told of 
the life of the people living at that time ; and the way 
we know something about how the Egyptians lived in 
that far-away time is, that great scholars have learned 
to read these pictures, just as we read books. 

Early each morning and late each evening the long 
slant rays of the sun stole down from the small window 
gratings of the temple far up near the ceiling and 
reached out to the farthest corner of the room. They 
lit up the columns, catching and reflecting their brilliant 
colors. To one standing in the center aisle and gazing 
off into the forest of stone, softened by the mellow light 
in which there was more yellow than any other color, the 
sight presented was almost inconceivable in its beauty. 

To this temple Kufu came every day to offer upon 
the stone table-like altars, sacrifices of flowers, geese, 
birds, fruits, or cattle. He chanted long prayers, joined 
in the processions and served in one room after another, 
gradually passing farther into the temple ; but not until 
he became king did he enter the most sacred room, the 
Holy of Holies. 

On great holidays the processions were long and 
grand, — the King, priests, musicians and dancers 
leading thousands of the common people through the 
streets and temples, and to the altars which stood on the 
banks of the Nile. How thankful they must have been 
to Isis and Osiris for making the Nile rise and refresh 
their gardens and fields ! I must briefly tell you about 
" The Welcome to the Nile," a great procession and 



HOW KUFU LIVED 27 

sacrifice by which the people worshiped Isis and 
Osiris : — 

A long line of priests, dressed in white, led by one 
with a leopard skin over his shoulders, approached the 
stream. Behind came a group of servants, some carry- 
ing baskets of the choicest fruits and grain, others lead- 
ing a young white bullock partly covered with a rich 
cloth of red, its horns trimmed with flowers and gold. 

On either side of the bullock singers and young girl- 
dancers kept time to the music of flutes, trumpets and 
drums, while the entire procession chanted songs to Isis, 
"The tears of Isis ! the tears of Isis ! Bringer of rich 
harvests and gifts of the gods ! " 

The Nile being reached, prayers were offered to 
Osiris and Isis. The fruits and grains were cast into 
the roaring flood, and the priest wearing the leopard skin, 
drew his sacred knife and mingled the bullock's blood 
with the roaring waters. 

The procession then returned to the temple, the canal 
gates were opened, the banks were cut, and the waters 
flowed over all the lowlands. For several weeks the 
lower country was one vast sea of water. In and near 
the cities the time was spent in feasting and gladness. 
" Osiris, the river god, is over the land," said the priests, 
" and since he gives such rich harvests, we must serve 
him with gladness, or he will not give his blessings 
again." 

When the water had reached its highest mark, the 
priests again offered gifts to Osiris, and the waters 
began to fall. 

The Egyptians were the first to think much about and 
believe one of the greatest of truths. They believed 



28 SCHOOL HISTORY 

that there is life after death ; that the soul never dies. 
And this, it is said, is how they came to think of this 
great truth. Every morning they looked toward the 
east and worshiped the great fiery sun-ball. They saw 
it come up from behind the desert, the Hidden Land, 
and thought it was a god. They had the following 
pretty thought about it : In the morning the young sun 
is the pretty child Horus, sailing up the eastern sky in a 
little boat. He has a spear with which he will kill the 
monster Darkness, who devoured him the night before. 
At noon he is the strong man, Ra, but by night he has 
grown to be the weak old man, Atum. Then the mon- 
ster Darkness devours him again ; but Atum wrestles 
Avith the monster and comes to life again, rising the next 
morning as the beautiful child, Horus. 

But their idea of life after death was quite different 
from our idea. Kufu's father told Kufu that just as the 
sun returned each morning to live again in its old form, 
although seemingly killed the night before, so the soul 
would return to the body to live in it again, after having 
been purified in the Hidden Land. They thought it 
took a very long time, — three thousand years, — for it 
to be purified and ready to come back to earth. 

Because of this belief, the Egyptians sought to pre- 
serve the body until the return of the soul. They 
studied the effect of various oils and spices on the body 
and worked out the process of embalming, that is pre- 
serving it, which is used to some extent, even to-day. 
The embalmed body, as prepared for burial by the 
ancient Egyptians, was called a mummy. Perhaps some 
day you will see a real mummy. If you ever go to 
Egypt, that is one thing you will surely see. I wonder 



HOW KUFU LIVED 



29 



if these ancient embalmers by studying the body so 
closely discovered any of the facts about medicine that 
are known by the doctors of to-day. 

This belief in immortality led the Egyptians to make 
statues. They feared that in some way the mummy 
might be destroyed, and the soul, returning, would have 
no form in which to live ; so those Egyptians that could 
afford it had statues of themselves made from stone. 
The statues were called " doubles." It was the belief of 
the people that the soul would enter into and dwell in 
the double if it were unable to find the mummy. The 
effort of the sculptor was to make the statue look exactly 
like the person ; otherwise the soul would fail to recog- 
nize it. Now the truest and greatest artist, when he 
carves statues or paints pictures, tries to make the thing 
he paints or carves a little more perfect than the real 
thing represented. Because the Egyptian artist did not 
do this, people have not so much cared for the art of the 
Egyptian as for that of the Greeks. If you look at 
the pictures of Egyptian statues, they will often look 
large and stiff; the Greek statues, on the other hand, 
are smaller, but much more graceful. 

However, this same belief that the soul would come 
back to the earth and want its body again, led the Egyp- 
tians to do things so great that the world has marveled 
at them ever since. They built tombs in which to keep 
their mummies and doubles. Since the kings were to 
become gods, the possibility that their souls might wan- 
der forever without bodies, was a horrible thought to the 
Egyptians. So, for miles up and down the banks of 
the Nile, they built immense tombs for them, which cost 
years of toil and great sums of money. 



30 SCHOOL HISTORY 

That you may better understand the grandeur of an 
Egyptian king's tomb, let us notice the one that Kufu 
built for himself when he became king. 

Above his city and to the east were low hills of sand- 
covered rocks. One of these rocks the wind had blown 
bare. Kufu selected this hill as the place for his tomb, 
for it was high, dry, quiet and peaceful. All around 
was the wide, quiet desert. 

Kufu had a good architect, and to him he gave one 
hundred thousand slaves, — more slaves than there are 
people in many of our cities. They made level a space 
seven hundred and fifty feet square. It was large enough 
to cover thirteen acres of ground. Great blocks of lime- 
stone were hewn out by the slaves and brought from the 
high cliffs. The blocks were thirty feet long, or half as 
long as the columns of the temple, and as thick as one of 
you boys is tall, or about four feet thick. They cut these 
stones and shaped and fitted them perfectly on the thir- 
teen-acre square, entirely covering it. On top of this 
layer they put another one a little smaller, thus leaving 
a step on the first layer that extended entirely around 
the square. Layer after layer was laid in this manner, 
until the top, which was just a few feet square, was laid. 
The top was a square of thirty feet ; we can mark that 
off in the schoolhouse yard. 

But this was not a solid pile of stone. Large halls 
about four feet high by three feet wide were left in 
it as it was built. Some led down into rooms cut out 
of the rock of the hill ; others into small rooms, one 
of which was to receive the body of Kufu. A num- 
ber of rooms were made, although but one was needed, 
in order to confuse persons attempting to steal away 



HOW KUFU LIVED 3 1 

the jewelry and the like which was buried with the 
king. 

After Kufu's death they placed his body in one of the 
rooms and filled up the small hall leading to it with 
granite blocks. Then the large steps that had been left 
on the sides of the pyramid were filled with blocks of 
stone, cut so as to fit neatly into and fill them. Thin 
slabs of highly polished stone were then cemented over 
the four faces of the pyramid, making it look like a 
great solid rock. Its four faces sloped to a point four 
hundred and fifty feet high. 

Thirty years were required in building this huge tomb. 
Think of the time, money, labor and lives that were 
given up in order that the king's body might be pre- 
served ! But in that day they did not think as much of 
the comfort and rights of the common people as we do 
now. If it took a million lives to build one king's tomb, 
they thought it was worth it. 

Many years after Kufn was dead, Arabs came from 
the east and stripped off the outer casings and fillings 
of the four sides, leaving them bare. Hundreds of 
people go to Egypt every year to see the Great Pyra- 
mid and climb its steep steps. Would you like to take 
an imaginary climb ? Three little Arabs will help you. 
One is at your back pushing, while two stand on the 
steps above and pull. Do not look down, or to the 
right or left. If you do, you will become dizzy, and 
run great risk of falling and being dashed to pieces. 

At last yon are on the top. As you look about, you 
see many other pyramids like this one, standing on the 
silent desert, and many temples scattered up and down 
the banks of the Nile. You see a large sandy desert 



32 SCHOOL HISTORY 

cut by a strip of green country, in which are farmers 
and herders, brick-makers and builders. The Nile, like 
a large kite, lies with its silvery ribbed head toward the 
north and its tail winding far southward through a green 
meadowland. 

In taking this last view of Kufu's strange country, it 
is interesting to remember that these people who lived 
so long ago, gave to the world many ideas which have 
never died, but which have grown ever better and con- 
tinued to help the world ever since. The Egyptians gave 
the world in its youthtime its first lessons in writing, in 
paper making, in building, in carving statues, in meas- 
uring, and more than any other people of the olden 
time, taught the belief that the soul never dies. 

References 

Erman : Life in Ancient Egypt; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 

Wilkinson : The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians ; 

3 vols. ; Dodd, Mead & Co., N.Y. 
Maspero : The Dawn of Civilization ; Appleton & Co., N.Y. 
Rawlinson : Ancient Egypt ; 2 vols. ; Dodd, Mead & Co., N.Y. 
Clodd : The Childhood of the World ; Humbolt Library Pub., N.Y. 
Myers and Allen : Ancient History ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Keary : The Dawn of History ; Scribner & Sons, N.Y. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE WHO FIRST 
TAUGHT MEN TO BELIEVE IN ONE 
GOD 

In ancient times, in a country far to the east of Egypt, 
there was a city named Ur. This city was located in 
the rich valley of the Euphrates River. The word Ur 
is said to mean light, or fire, and it is thought by some 
that the city was called by that name because the 
people who lived in it worshiped the sun. They also 
worshiped idols made of stone and wood. 

About the time that King Kufu was building the 
Great Pyramid in Egypt, there lived in Ur a man 
named Terah, a maker of idols. He had a son named 
Abraham. 

Abraham thought that it was wrong to bow down to 
and worship things of stone and wood made by his 
father's slaves. A very old history book tells this story 
of Abraham when he was yet a boy : " One day his father 
went away and left him to take care of the shop. An 
old woman came in with food for the idols. After she 
was gone Abraham took a hammer, and after breaking 
all the idols but the largest, put the hammer into its 
hands. When his father came home he was angry and 
asked what wretch had broken his idols. Abraham 
told him that the big one broke all the others because 
they were greedy. 

33 



34 SCHOOL HISTORY 

His father said, " You know that they neither eat nor 
move." 

" And yet," said the boy, "you would worship them 
and have me do likewise." 

In his rage his father sent him to Nimrod, the king of 
Ur, to be punished. The king told him to worship fire 
if he did not want to worship his father's idols. 

Then Abraham said, " Why not worship water, which 
will put out fire, or the clouds which hold the water, or 
the wind which drives the clouds ? " 

The king replied, " Pray then to the water, the clouds 
and the wind." 

But again Abraham answered, " Be not angry, O 
king ; I cannot pray to any of these things, but to the 
God who made them all." 

Abraham persuaded several persons to believe as he 
did ; and finally, wishing to worship the true God in a 
better way, he gathered together his family, slaves, 
herds and flocks, and traveled toward the west up the 
fine, rich valley of the Euphrates, and then over the 
hills, the deserts and the sandy plains, into a strange 
country, just east of the Mediterranean Sea, where they 
wandered about for some time with no fixed home, 
living on the products of their herds. 

Abraham, as the father of the tribe, commanded that 
wherever they stopped, an altar should be erected and 
prayers and sacrifices offered to the one true God. 
Although they wandered about for years, the wisest 
of them never ceased to worship the one God. 

Thus they pastured their flocks, lived in tents and 
increased in numbers ; so that when Abraham died he 
was affectionately called the father of his people, — the 



WHAT THE HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 35 

Hebrews, or Jews, — through whom the belief in one 
God has spread over a great part of the world. 

After the death of Abraham the Hebrews continued 
to prosper by raising great herds of sheep, cattle and 
goats. But once, when it did not rain for a long time 
and the crops failed and a famine came, many of them 
left their own land and went down into the country of 
Egypt to live. At first the Egyptians were kind to 
them and taught them a great deal, for, as you know, 
the Egyptians were, at this time, the wisest people in 
the world ; but later the king came to fear that the 
Hebrews would not be faithful subjects, so he made 
slaves of them and treated them very cruelly. 

After they had been in Egypt for several hundred 
years, a great leader grew up among them. This was 
Moses. In the Bible you will find the story of his 
birth and education ; and of how, in spite of the opposi- 
tion of the king, he led the Hebrews out of Egypt, and 
through the sands and deserts of the wilderness, back 
eastward and northward to the country where Abraham 
and his kindred had lived hundreds of years before. 

The land to which they came was called Canaan, 
which means lowlands. It lies on the low coast at the 
eastern extremity of the Mediterranean Sea, and it was 
inhabited by the Canaanites. The Hebrews, after much 
fierce fighting, conquered these people, took their lands 
from them, and built upon it a little nation. Long after 
this the country was called the Holy Land, and also 
Palestine. 

Palestine was only a small country. By walking ten 
miles a day, you could have walked its length in fifteen 
days and across it in five days. It was not far from the 



36 SCHOOL HISTORY 

size of New Jersey. To the west of it was the Mediter- 
ranean Sea ; it was separated from Phoenicia on the 
north by the Lebanon Mountains, and to the south and 
east lay mountains and vast sandy deserts. 

It was itself a very hilly and mountainous country. 
The rows of mountains and valleys that cut it up into 
little fields and uplands made many separate places of 
settlement for the people, and this did not make it very 
easy for them to live close together and to become well 
acquainted with one another. So, for many hundreds 
of years, the people lived in separate groups, called 
tribes, each tribe having its own leader or "judge"; 
and although all the Hebrews, at about a thousand years 
before Christ, did live for a short time under just one 
ruler, called a king, yet partly because the country was so 
rough and divided into broken sections, the people broke 
up again into parts, and could not live for any great 
while in one union as we do in America. Do you think 
when they were thus broken into divisions it would be 
easier for surrounding peoples to conquer them ? 

The Jordan River also tended to divide the people. 
It rose in the northern highlands and flowed toward the 
south, through deep gorges, cutting Palestine into two 
parts — an eastern and a western. At one place it 
spread out, forming the Sea of Galilee, and at another 
the Dead Sea. In all the length of the Jordan, there 
were but three places where it could be easily crossed ; 
and on account of the falls and rocks in it, ships could 
not sail up it and float down with its current, as they 
could in Kufu's country on the gently flowing Nile. 
This tended to keep the people from being under one 
king as much as they were in Egypt, or as was the case 



WHAT THE' HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 37 

in the great nations which grew up in the Tigro- 
Euphrates Valley. 

In Palestine, too, on account of the high mountains 
and low. valleys there were many different kinds of cli- 
mate, and hence many different kinds of vegetation and 
animals. On the tops of the mountains, where it was 
cold, there was very little vegetation and often fierce 
animals ; in the southern part it was warm and the 
vegetation and grains were abundant ; while in the val- 
leys of the Jordan and Dead Sea it was hot and the 
vegetation luxuriant. The rainfall was abundant and 
the soil, especially in the valleys, rich, so it was in many 
ways and in many places a delightful country in which 
to live. 

Thus you see there were many things which kept 
the people from easily living together under one ruler ; 
but yet, as I told you, they did for a time try it, so 
let us now think that many years have passed since 
the Hebrews entered Palestine in disconnected tribes. 
They have become a nation of considerable wealth, 
live many of them in cities as well as the country, 
and have for their ruler the wise King Solomon. 

How changed the country is from the time when the 
Jews lived in tents and pastured their flocks and herds ! 
Look at the farms, orchards and vineyards which nes- 
tle in the valleys and blossom on the hillsides ; see the 
broad highways and narrow roads running through the 
country ; see the towns and cities to which the country 
people bring their products and come to trade ; and 
away to the south, on Mt. Zion and Mt. Moriah, see 
Jerusalem crowned with her glistening temple. How 
different all this is from the time, hundreds of years 



38 SCHOOL HISTORY 

before, when there were no roads or cities, or fields 
or splendid temple, — but when the people wandered 
about as shepherds, living in tents and worshiping at 
a wooden altar, set up by some spring or well, where 
they came to water their flocks ! 

I wish now to tell you of Palestine as it was at this 
time. If I should begin to tell you of that which the 
Jews most loved and thought most about, I should tell 
you of their religion and of the splendid temple. For 
as I have already said, no people in that olden time 
thought so much or so well on religion as the Jews ; 
and no people ever thought more of the place in which 
they worshiped than the Jews thought of their temple 
at Jerusalem. But before speaking of these great things, 
let us see something of the daily life of the people. 

Grazing on the hillsides were flocks of sheep and 
goats, watched over by shepherd boys, like David, and 
by their dogs. The boys were dressed in shirts gath- 
ered in around the waist by strong, red leather belts. 
Hanging from the belt was a knife and bludgeon, or a 
short oak stick with one end heavier and thicker than 
the other and having nails driven into it. With this 
the shepherds protected themselves and flocks from 
fierce animals. They also carried long staffs with 
crooks on the ends, with which they caught the sheep 
and goats around the neck and drew them back from 
dangerous places. At night the shepherds, assisted by 
their dogs, drove the flocks home, counted them, and 
shut them safely in pens till the next morning. 

In the valleys were fields of wheat, barley and lentils, 
which were cultivated and reaped by both men and 
women. The harvest began about the first of April, 



WHAT THE HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 39 

when the barley was cut, then the lentils, and finally the 
wheat. During the harvest time, girls brought to the 
fields parched corn, water, and bread dipped in vinegar 
as food for the busy men and women. The women and 
girls also helped to reap the grain in the fields. 

On some of the hillsides there were great vineyards. 
The hills were made into terraces to prevent the winter 
rain from washing away the soil. Little towers were 
built in the center of the vineyards, in which watchmen 
stayed and kept away robbers. 

Here and there in the vineyards were fig trees, having 
great leaves and bearing delicious fruit. The hill slopes 
were often covered with olive orchards. The olive 
crop was among the last of the fruits to be gathered in 
the autumn ; when they were ripe they were shaken 
from the trees in October. 

From the grapes the Hebrews made raisins and wine ; 
the olives were much used for food, and from them olive 
oil was made, which was used instead of butter. 

In its best days Palestine was covered over by a net- 
work of roads. One highway, through the country, 
extended from Egypt to Babylon, and another from 
Tyre to Damascus. From all directions there were 
roads leading to Jerusalem which, every spring, were 
put in good order, for the Jews all had to go to Jerusa- 
lem to worship in the great temple several times each 
year. 

Could we have been in Palestine and seen the people 
from all parts of the country gathering for one of these 
festivals at Jerusalem, we would have seen on the roads 
great caravans, consisting of camels, donkeys and men ; 
rude carts drawn by oxen laden with merchandise, men, 



40 SCHOOL HISTORY 

women and children ; and many also of the poorer class, 
on foot, making their way to the holy city to attend the 
religious festivals. 

In approaching the city of Jerusalem, the first thing 
one would have seen was the low stone wall surround- 
ing it. Outside the wall the carts, camels and donkeys 
of those coming to trade, were left. The traders also, 
who remained for some time, pitched their tents here. 
Around the city there was another wall, which was very 
high and built of stone. Between the walls there was 
a deep ditch which had to be crossed before the gate in 
the inner wall could be reached. This gate was very 
large, made of iron, and fastened with bolts and bars. 
Just above the gate was a watch tower, in which was 
stationed the watchman who guarded the city and sur- 
rounding country. They took great care that no enemy 
should enter, but the gate was always open to visitors 
and traders. 

Just inside the gate was the market square. Here 
the country people brought their produce from the 
fields, orchards and dairies. Peddlers from Tyre sold 
purple linen, tin, and musical instruments ; those from 
Persia sold rugs, vases and shawls ; peddlers from 
Egypt sold jewelry and papyrus, carpets, muslins and 
engravings on stone ; millet and dates came from Baby- 
lon ; spices and frankincense from Arabia. The ped- 
dlers advertised their wares in loud voices, and the scene 
at the market place was one of noise and bustle. 

Narrow streets opened off from the market square. 
They were very straight, and some were paved ; one 
street was so narrow that it was called the " Eye of a 
Needle." When Jesus said, " It is easier for a camel to 



WHAT THE HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 41 

go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to 
enter the kingdom of Heaven," some say he meant this 
street, for it was so narrow that a camel could not go 
through with even one sack on its back. The streets 
were dimly lighted by lamps, or lanterns, placed in the 
latticed windows of the houses. These lamps, filled 
with olive oil, burned all night, and watchmen guarded 
the streets at night as our policemen do. 

The houses were very close together and of all 
sizes : some were one, some two, and some three, stories 
high. I will tell you of one of the best of these houses 
and of the life of a family who dwelt within it. It was 
three stories high, made of brick, and its walls were 
whitewashed. A broad stairway on the outside of the 
house led from the ground to the roof, which was flat 
and surrounded by a railing three feet high. There 
were no windows in the side of the house, as we have, 
for the Hebrews were forbidden to look into a neigh- 
bor's house ; but one could, if he wished, easily step 
from the roof of one house to the roof of another. 

Upon the roof there was a room reserved for guests, 
for you remember that Palestine was a warm country, 
except on the mountains, and the people lived much on 
the roofs of their houses. It was the coolest room of 
the house and most convenient for guests, since they 
could pass in and out without disturbing the family. 

Upon approaching the house from the street, nothing 
but a high wall could be seen. Upon coming nearer, a 
door was seen below, and windows, extending out from 
the wall a short distance, were above. 

By raising the knocker you called a porter to the gate, 
and upon entering, found yourself, not in a room as you 



42 SCHOOL HISTORY 

expected, but in a beautiful yard or court in which 
there were fountains, climbing vines, and beautiful 
flower beds. The Hebrew family, of which I am going 
to tell you, lived here, consisting of father, mother and 
two children, Judah and Ruth. They were all very 
dark and had dark hair and eyes. The father wore 
a beard, of which he was very proud. 

They all wore long, full mantles, or tunics, fastened 
at the waist with a belt, or girdle. The mantles were 
made of a richly embroidered linen, and they wore a 
great deal of jewelry on their arms, wrists, fingers, 
necks and in their ears. Their sandals — soles of 
shoes fastened with linen straps — were removed when- 
ever they entered the house, for Hebrews never wore 
sandals in the house or temple, or in times of great 
trouble. 

Their house was built around a court on three sides, 
and the halls, rafters and lattice of the windows were 
made of beautifully carved wood. It was furnished 
with tables, chairs, couches, rugs, vases, lamps and 
candlesticks. Many of these things were as beautiful 
as the most beautiful furniture which we have at the 
present time. They were all made by hand, for they 
had no immense factories filled with machinery then as 
we have now. 

The lamps, much like our piano-lamps, stood on stands. 
They were made of bronze, and looked like long, low 
pitchers, with spouts like that of a teapot. They had 
handles on one side. In the center was an opening 
for pouring in the oil, and the wick passed out through 
the spout. The light was kept burning constantly, since 
in that day, and for thousands of years afterward, they 



WHAT THE HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 43 

had no matches, and when they allowed the fire to go 
out, they could only get it again by friction, — that is, by 
rubbing two things, like sticks, together till they got so 
hot they would burn. 

In the kitchen there were wooden bowls, odd-shaped 
pitchers, called kads, which were carried on the head, 
an oven, and a hand mill for grinding their grain into 
flour. The hand mill consisted of two stones. The 
lower one was hollowed out and the top one set into it. 
Wheat was put into the lower one and ground to flour 
by turning the top one round and round. How slow 
and difficult it would seem to us if we had to obtain all 
our flour by grinding by hand ! The flour was made 
into cakes, and the cakes were baked on the hot stones 
in the oven. 

The family had the principal meal in the evening. 
In the dining room couches and divans, made of beau- 
tiful wood and covered with rich cloth, were placed 
before low tables. Those who were eating reclined 
on these, resting the head on the left hand and eating 
with the right. The father said grace ; the servants 
brought bowls of water that they might wash their 
fingers, since the fingers were then used instead of 
knives and forks. While musicians played upon the 
harp, they conversed and dined. They ate meat cut 
in fine pieces, cakes, broth and fruit of many kinds, 
as grapes, figs, apples and dates. Finally wine was 
served, which closed the meal. After the meal was 
finished they again washed their fingers, and the father 
offered a prayer of thanks. 

Ruth did not attend a school but was taught by her 
mother the necessary things about housekeeping, such 



44 SCHOOL HISTORY 

as how to grind flour on the mill, cook, spin, weave and 
sew. Every little Hebrew girl was trained for a good 
housewife. And though it seems wrong to us, the best 
of the Hebrew men often had two, three, or more, wives. 

Judah was sent to the synagogue to learn the Jewish 
law, and both Judah and Ruth learned passages from 
the books written by the wise Hebrew men, and the 
Ten Commandments, which the Jews thought even 
more of than we in America do of our Constitution. 
Their father taught them by having them repeat over 
many times those parts of the wise writing which taught 
them to believe in one God. Both the children learned 
to sing and to dance, so that they could assist in the 
worship of God at the temple. 

Most Hebrew boys were taught trades; either to be 
farmers, merchants, carpenters, wood-carvers, or scribes. 
Judah, as was said before, was one of the few who went 
to the temple to learn of the rabbi to read and write 
and the stories of the great men, — Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, Moses, David and Solomon, — who had helped to 
make them a great people. No other people, perhaps, 
of the olden time were quite so proud of their nation as 
the Hebrews ; and one thing Judah and his classmates 
were especially taught by the rabbis was the great things 
done in the history of their people. To make them true 
to their country and to their religion, they were told 
how the Hebrews passed through great hardship and 
struggle in forming their nation and keeping pure their 
faith in one God ; how they were for a long time cap- 
tives in Egypt, but escaped from slavery, and for years 
wandered northward through the hot and sandy desert, 
led by one of the greatest men of the world — Moses, 



WHAT THE HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 45 

their great captain and law-giver. They were told how, 
for hundreds of years, the Hebrews fought with the 
Canaanites, finally conquering them and taking Pales- 
tine for their own land. They were told that through all 
these wars God had taken special care of them and had 
given them victory over their enemies. They were 
taught, in fact, that they were the Chosen People of 
God, and they are by many so regarded even yet. 

Now I must tell you that the history of these struggles, 
the laws made by their great men, the proverbs of their 
wise men, the poems of their poets, the war songs of 
their captains, the songs of rejoicing in victory and the 
lofty prayers and sermons by their great prophets were 
from time to time written down on separate pieces of 
stone or on wood or skins. These writings were read 
and studied by the boys in the temples ; and it was about 
these great things of religion and not arithmetic, geog- 
raphy and the like that Judah studied. Nor did he use 
the same kind of books that you have, for their books 
were generally written on parchment made of sheepskin, 
and were called " scrolls." The parchment was fastened 
on rollers that had knobs on the ends. As one read he 
gradually unrolled the scroll, as we do a map, or window- 
blind, hung on rollers. When not in use, the scrolls 
were rolled up and put away in cases resembling band- 
boxes. These boxes were kept with great care in a 
special room in the temple. 

Many years after this time these scrolls were gradually 
gathered together by the most learned of the Hebrews 
into one book, — the Old Testament of our Bible, — 
and I suppose you can think of no other one book in 
the world which is read by so many people as this one, 



46 SCHOOL HISTORY 

except the one written also hundreds of years after- 
ward by writers descended from the Hebrews and 
telling about the life of Jesus, who also lived and taught 
among the Hebrews, founding much of his teaching upon 
the best of the ideas patiently worked out by them. 

The learned Hebrew men used often to go up to the 
temple, and, sitting around in a circle on the floor, with 
one in the center for reader or talker, they read and 
discussed the contents of these books. Judah and his 
classmates often sat a short distance away and listened. 
How they drank in every word telling of their great 
heroes, and how proud they were of their people ! 
Many were their vows to be as brave in battle and 
faithful to the One God as their ancestors. 

The Hebrews worshiped God, not only in their temples 
but in their homes. Every night and morning Judah 
and Ruth prayed to God, and their father prayed for 
his children and blessed them. 

The Sabbath day they gave wholly to the worship of 
God, and were so very strict that they would do no work 
whatever upon that day. It began on Friday evening 
and lasted until sundown on Saturday. Ruth and Judah 
always had the house decorated with flowers and the 
Sabbath lamp burning brightly and the table spread 
with their choicest food. On the Sabbath evening the 
father gave his children a special blessing, called the 
blessing of Israel. 

Now as we have been talking about Judah and Ruth, 
and of the Jewish people among whom they lived, what 
does it seem to you they were most interested in, and 
what did they spend most time thinking about ? They 
plowed and sowed fields and reaped them ; they 



WHAT THE HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 47 

gathered grapes and olives ; the children played games 
much as children do now ; they elected kings as we do 
our President ; they learned to read and write, spin, 
weave and cook, very much as our grandparents had to 
do when they were children; and did many other just 
everyday things like all the other people who lived 
around them did. 

But there was one thing they were more earnest about 
than any other, and that was to teach the people that 
there is but one God, who rules the sun and moon and 
stars and ocean, and everything in the world. Most 
other people who lived at the time of the Jews believed 
there were many hundreds of gods and goddesses, one 
ruling one thing and one another. But the Jews were 
so earnest to keep their people from thinking about 
more than one god that they would not allow any statue 
of God to be carved and set up in their temples of wor- 
ship, and in this particular they were very different from 
all other peoples who lived at their time. Because they 
were not allowed to make statues of God they did not 
produce beautiful art as, for example, the Greeks did. 

It was because they thought so much of their religion 
that they thought so much of their beautiful temple at 
Jerusalem ; and this I must now briefly tell you about. 

It was built in Jerusalem, on the top of Mt. Moriah, 
and was one of the noblest structures ever reared by 
the hand of man. It was built of stone, but plates of 
gold were so arranged on the outer walls that the whole 
temple shone most beautifully in the rays of the sun. 

The stone of which it was built was hewn from the 
quarries of Phoenicia, and the wood was cut from the 
cedars of Lebanon. King Hiram of Phoenicia had all 



48 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the stone hewn so perfectly in the quarries that when 
he sent them to King Solomon they fitted together so 
snugly and well that it is said, not a sound of a hammer 
was heard in re-shaping the stones during the entire 
seven years of the building of the temple. 

When completed it was not very large ; often the 
heathen temples were much larger, and many of our 
Christian churches of the present time are two, three, 
and even six, times as large as it was, but, as I have 
already said, in all the world there has not been another 
more richly built or finely finished, and certainly none 
which did so much in early times to teach the people 
true ideas about God. 

It was surrounded by a court, which was inclosed by 
a high wall. It was about two hundred feet high, was 
covered by a flat roof, like their private dwellings, faced 
the rising sun, as did all their temples, and had a broad 
porch, with large columns, extending across the front. 

The temple was divided into two rooms, one just back 
of the other. The inside of the walls, the ceiling and 
the floor were overlaid with sheets of gold. The doors, 
hung on golden hinges, were richly carved with beauti- 
ful figures, and these in turn were ornamented with 
precious stones and the finest gold. 

The first room in entering the temple, called the Holy 
Place, contained the golden altar where incense was 
burned and sent forth its sweet perfume throughout the 
entire temple. On one side of the altar stood a golden 
candlestick, and on the other side the table for shew- 
bread. The candlestick had six branches, and in each 
branch were three lamps in which olive oil was kept 
continually burning. The table was made of cedar 



WHAT THE HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 49 

wood covered with gold, and had on it wine and twelve 
loaves of bread. The wine and bread were used in 
worship, somewhat as they are used in religious worship 
in churches nowadays. 

The second room, just back of the first, was smaller 
and square in shape. It was called the Holy of Holies. 
You remember the Egyptians had such a room in their 
temple. No one but the High Priest could enter this 
room, and he could enter but once a year. Before the 
Holy of Holies hung beautiful white linen curtains 
interwoven with blue, purple and scarlet of the richest 
hue. In the Holy of Holies were kept those things 
which made the Jews think of the great deeds and the 
great men of their nation, and the protection and mercy 
which God had given them through their long history ; 
these were first, the Ark of the Covenant, second, 
the Mercy-seat, and third, two statues of angels, called 
Cherubim. 

The Ark was a chest of wood about the size of a large 
trunk, and was covered outside and inside with gold. It 
stood on four feet and had rings at the corners to slip 
poles through ; for at first, when the Jews were very war- 
like and had no settled place for their capital, they carried 
the Ark from place to place and always in front of them 
in battle, just as our army carries in front of it the flag. 
It is said it contained within it two tables of stone, upon 
which the Ten Commandments were written, — this 
made them think of their great law-givers ; " the Golden 
Pot of Manna," — this made them think of God's mercy 
to them ; and Aaron's Rod, that budded, — this made 
them think that their religion and nation would forever 
keep on budding, as it were, and never die. On the 



50 SCHOOL HISTORY 

upper corners of the Ark were four blocks of gold, upon 
which rested a covering, like a broad board, made of pure 
gold. This was the Mercy-seat. On each end of it 
stood the figure of a golden angel, or cherub. The two 
faced each other, and their outspread wings, as they 
gracefully inclined forward, met over the center of the 
Ark, upon which they gazed. 

These things were much more sacred to the Hebrews 
than our flag is to us, for they stood not only for the 
country but for their religion, and hence they protected 
them with the greatest care, and gave their lives for 
them as brave men nowadays do for their homes, their 
native land and their God; for in fighting for these 
things men feel that they are fighting for the most pre- 
cious things in the world. 

Outside the temple, in the courtyard, was a very large 
altar on which burnt offerings were sacrificed, and a 
large brazen bowl resting upon the backs of twelve 
oxen. Before offering a sacrifice, the priests washed 
in the water in this basin. Even the animals to be 
sacrificed were washed, for the Hebrews believed that 
only the purest and cleanest things should be offered 
to God. 

And now having told you briefly how the temple was 
built, and how beautiful it was, both without and within, 
and how it was the most sacred thing to the Jew in all 
the world, I must very briefly tell you how it was dedi- 
cated — that is, about the ceremony which the Jews had, 
to give the temple over to the service of God ; for it was 
on this day, perhaps, and in this act, that the Jewish 
people reached the very highest point of their great- 
ness. 



WHAT THE HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 51 

The people of every class from all over Palestine 
came up to Jerusalem, bringing with them thousands of 
cattle and sheep to sacrifice as a peace offering to Jeho- 
vah and to see the ceremony of the dedication. 

When the city was all decorated and thronged with 
visitors, a grand procession of the fathers and elders of 
the various tribes, with Solomon at their head, formed and 
marched slowly up the mountain side, before the priests, 
carrying the Ark of the Covenant. Along the way 
incense filled the air, sacrifices of sheep and oxen were 
made, and amid clapping of hands, shouting and music, 
the whole assembly broke forth in songs of praise 
and thanksgiving to their God. When the Ark was 
finally lifted to its place, under the wings of the cheru- 
bim, clouds of incense filled the temple, symbolic of the 
glory of God. 

Solomon, standing on the portico of the temple, blessed 
the Children of Israel. He then knelt down before the 
altar, and raising his hands to Heaven, offered up a fer- 
vent prayer, in which he begged Jehovah to bless the 
temple and to hear the voice of the people, even that of 
the stranger, when it was directed in prayer toward the 
temple : " That thine eyes may be open toward this 
house, night and day. That thou mayst hearken to the 
prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place." 
Thus with incense, sacrifices, feasts, processions and 
prayers was the splendid temple given over to the 
service of God. 

There have been many buildings reared in the his- 
tory of the world where noble men have thought great 
thoughts and done great deeds. Our own Capitol build- 
ing at Washington is one, where our great men have 



52 SCHOOL HISTORY 

thought out and passed laws which have built a great 
nation ; Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, is where we 
told all the world that we were free from England and 
that all men should be free to make the most of their 
lives ; in the heart of the great city of London is the 
Parliament House, where for six hundred years freedom- 
loving Englishmen have been building one of the freest 
and best nations ever built. Away back in old Rome, 
on the Capitol hill met the mighty Roman Senate, which 
gave all the world afterward great lessons of how to rule 
men ; still farther away, and farther back in time, on a 
rocky hill called the Acropolis, beauty-loving Greeks 
built the beautiful temple called the Parthenon, and 
carved in marble such graceful statues of their gods 
and goddesses that they have served as models of 
beauty for all ages since ; still farther away, and farther 
back in time, on the mountain in Jerusalem was built a 
temple without a statue in it, and in which no Congress 
or Parliament or Senate ever met, but in which the 
greatest book in the history of the world was worked 
out and the truest religion of all the peoples of the Old 
East was developed, — the one teaching, that there is one 
God, all powerful, all just, who rules the entire universe. 
By teaching this to the people, the world got a great start 
toward finding out more about the True God, and it made it 
possible hundreds of years afterward for Jesus to teach 
mankind not only that there is one all-powerful and all- 
just God, but the even greater lesson that He is an All- 
loving God ; and that the way to worship Him, is not to 
give up to Him oxen, and sheep, and the like, as sacrifices, 
but to give up the evil in our lives, and put good in its 
place by loving and helping others, and by being thank- 



WHAT THE HEBREWS TAUGHT THE WORLD 53 

fill to Him for this beautiful world in which we can do so 
much good. And thus I think you see that this little 
rocky, mountainous country, no larger on many a map 
than your finger, and in reality not a hundredth part as 
large as our own country, taught us the true idea of One 
God. This idea has grown " like the grain of mustard- 
seed," and with the truth which was added to it by Jesus 
no doubt will keep growing till it will cover the whole 
world. And thus you will see more and more as we go 
on studying history, that for men and nations to be great 
in the world, they must have great thoughts and do great 
deeds. A country may be very small in territory, and 
yet be very great in teaching the world great truths. 

References 

Day : Social Life of the Hebrews ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Ottley : A Short History of the Hebrews; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Clodd : The Childhood of the World; Humbolt Library Pub., N.Y. 
Whitehouse : A Primer of Hebrew Antiquities ; Revell & Co., N.Y. 
Edersheim : Jewish Social Life ; Revell & Co., N.Y. 
Smith : The Geography of the Holy Land ; Armstrong & Son, N.Y. 
Cornill : History of the People of Israel; Open Ct. Pub. Co., 

Chicago. 
Kent : History of the Jews ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Gladden : Who Wrote the Bible; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., N.Y. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; 

Ginn & Co., Boston. 



HOW LITTLE HIRAM BECAME KING 

In the story of the Hebrews we were speaking of 
King Hiram of Phoenicia helping Solomon to build the 
beautiful temple at Jerusalem. Now I will tell you 
more of King Hiram and of his people and country. 

Phoenicia was a small country lying a little to the 
east and almost north of Palestine. The Mediterranean 
Sea lay to the west, and the Lebanon Mountains shut 
it away from the rest of the world on the east. 

It was a strip of country about one hundred and fifty 
miles long and about fifteen wide. By starting to walk 
across the country the longest way on Monday morning, 
and by walking thirty miles a day, your father could 
have reached the other side by Friday evening, or by 
crossing the country the narrow way, he could have 
reached the other side before Monday noon. 

Phoenicia was not a level country. It was broken up 
by beautiful mountains that are many times higher than 
the tallest tree or building you ever saw. They are 
called the Lebanon Mountains. They are very rugged 
and sharp, and very hard to climb. For many years 
the ancient Phoenicians tried to cross them but could 
not. They are made of a peculiar kind of rock, and 
are very white when the sun shines on them. The 
climate in Phoenicia is always warm and the days are 
nearly always bright. 

54 



HOW LITTLE HIRAM BECAME KING 55 

On some of the mountains were very large forests of 
cedar and pine trees. Have you ever heard of the 
cedars of Lebanon ? 

You must remember that the whole country is not 
twice as large as the state of Rhode Island. Since it is 
so narrow, and the mountains come right down to the 
sea in many places, there are very few good wagon roads 
in the country. Between the mountains, in some places, 
there are valleys as large as four or five small farms put 
together. The strip of land along the coast is covered 
with sand, but lying back of that is rich soil. This is 
where the farmers lived. 

Each one had a very small farm or garden. On the 
farms grew a tree which had on it bright scarlet blos- 
soms. It was very beautiful when in blossom. Its 
fruit was the pomegranate. Fig trees and large green 
trees having upon them juicy golden oranges grew 
there. There were also orchards of apple, peach and 
pear trees. In the gardens grew onions, radishes, cu- 
cumbers, melons and beets ; and in the fields grew oats, 
wheat, barley and hay. 

In the eastern part of the country, near the foot of 
the mountains, there were low hills, upon the sides of 
which grew the chestnut, oak, cypress, walnut, syca- 
more, mulberry, almond, olive and palm trees. The soil 
for these trees had been washed down from the moun- 
tains by the rivers, just as " Father Nilus " brought the 
rich soil down to Egypt. These streams dashed down 
to the plains very rapidly, making many waterfalls. 

In this country King Hiram was born when Judah 
and Ruth, of whom we have been studying, lived in 
Jerusalem. His father's name was Abibaal, and he was 



56 SCHOOL HISTORY 

king of the country. They lived in a beautiful city 
called Tyre. Part of this city was built on the mainland 
and part on an island ; that on the mainland was called 
" Old Tyre " that on the island " New Tyre." 

Little Hiram liked to roam about in his father's gar- 
dens. He played much as the boys do now, but he 
learned to use his eyes and ears perhaps even better 
than we often do ; for, not having books, as children do 
now, he had to get his education chiefly by seeing things 
much more than by reading about them. 

In Hiram's country not many people could be farmers 
and have large farms, for there was not enough land ; 
so, many turned to the sea to see if they could not make 
their living there. There was a little fish in the Medi- 
terranean Sea which had a sac in the back of its neck in 
which there was a colored liquid. When this liquid was 
boiled for several days it could be used for coloring 
cloth. A piece of cloth, when dipped into this dye, 
became either red, blue, or purple. The kings and 
rich people liked to wear fine purple clothing ; so many 
people became fishers. Hiram, when a little boy, liked 
to go down and watch them work. 

The fishers soon found that they could not get enough 
of these fish near the shore, so they began to make 
boats, that they might venture out farther. As they 
ventured farther and farther out, it was more conven- 
ient to have larger boats. After a time they learned to 
make three different sizes of boats — not steamboats, 
though (for this was thousands of years before steam 
was used), but rowboats, rowed by slaves which the 
Phoenicians bought from people whom they traded 
with, in all directions from their little home. 



HOW LITTLE HIRAM BECAME KING 57 

In the first kind of boat they had fifty strong men 
to row, hence it was called the pen-te-con-ter, which 
means fifty. It took twice as many men — that is, a 
hundred — to row their second-sized boat. They did not 
all sit on a level, but twenty-five sat above and twenty- 
five below, on each side. If you looked at the side of 
the boat when the rowers were in it, you saw two rows 
of heads and two rows of oars. It was called a bireme, 
because it had two rows of oars. In the third size there 
were three times as many men as in the first boat, and 
they sat in three rows, one row above another. This 
boat was called a trireme, because it had three rows of 
oars. They did not use sails or rigging except in fair 
weather, when they had one small sail. Their boats 
did not have full decks, but small ones at the ends of 
the boat. When they wanted to go very fast they 
fastened a sharp point on the front end of the boat 
which would cut the water. The large, deep place in 
the center was for their cargo. 

As Hiram had often been down to the shore watching 
what seemed to him were large ships, he became a great 
pet of the sailors. One day, when he was yet a boy, 
a captain of one of the boats asked him to go with him 
on the journey. He received permission from his 
father, and he and his servant went aboard and were 
soon out at sea. 

Hiram often went over the boat to see what they 
were shipping away from his country. He found the 
grains, fruits and nuts that grew everywhere on the hill- 
sides and in the valleys of Phoenicia, and wool and hair. 
One day he found a cage of birds, and was told that 
they were brought along to fly to land if the sailors in 



58 SCHOOL HISTORY 

cloudy weather should lose their way and could not find 
land. You see they did not have our compass and had 
to sail by guiding their ships by the North Star. 

This time the sailors and traders went along the 
coast of Africa and got ivory, gold-dust, apes, peacocks, 
ostrich feathers, and a kind of oak for ship-building. 
Then they went far on across the blue Mediterranean 
Sea. to Spain to get some tin for which they traded the 
gold-dust; ivory, ostrich feathers and timber. Still they 
were not satisfied, and they sailed out through the 
Strait of Gibraltar into the Atlantic Ocean and struck 
boldly out on its stormy waves, landing on the coast of 
England. This time they traded a part of their cargo 
to the Britons (the people then living in England) for 
tin, chalk and wool. 

From England they went eastward across the ocean 
to the Baltic Sea. A long time before the Phoenicians 
lived, there was a kind of pine tree that grew along the 
shores of the Baltic. This tree had a hard yellow resin, 
which ran down into the sand and there hardened. 
Much of it was washed out into the sea. It is now 
known as amber. Here the Phoenicians traded their 
tin, ostrich feathers, gold-dust, ivory, etc., for amber. 

They were then ready to return home. On the way 
back to Phoenicia they stopped at the Canary Islands 
and traded for canary birds. All along the coasts were 
the people with whom they had traded on the way out; 
and now, as they returned, they traded again, only this 
time they gave tin, wool, amber and chalk for more 
ostrich feathers, gold-dust, ivory, and the like. After a 
long absence they reached the city of Tyre. 

Hiram had enjoyed the journey very much, even if it 



HOW LITTLE HIRAM BECAME KING 59 

had taken so long a time (for you must remember that 
we said they had no steamboat), and his parents 
welcomed him home. 

Hiram's father wanted to improve his country and to 
make it the richest one on the Mediterranean Sea. So 
when his son returned from his sea voyage, he found 
that his father had had the Phoenicians cut out a few 
narrow roads over the mountains. The roads were often 
so narrow at places in the mountains that only one per- 
son or animal could creep along over them at a time. 

He also learned that while he was gone a caravan had 
come into the country over one of those roads, from the 
far East, across the sandy deserts, from the rich valley 
of the Euphrates. When the caravan returned home 
again, many Phoenicians went with it. Caravans con- 
tinued coming to Phoenicia, and the people soon began 
to get wealthy. But cruel people, thieves and robbers, 
would come over the mountain roads as well as the 
traders, so the king had to think of some way to keep 
them out. He had large, thick, stone walls built around 
the city of Tyre. In the walls were gates, and nobody 
could enter the city unless he came through the gates. 

One day there was much noise at one of the city 
gates. The people knew that there was a new caravan 
outside the wall, and they were all anxious to get some- 
thing new. But they must wait over night, for the 
traders were all too tired with their journey to begin work. 
The next morning the king and all his people went out 
to meet the traders, and of course Hiram went, too. 

When the caravan was ready to return home, back to 
the far East, Hiram asked to go with them. Again his 
father gave his permission. So Hiram and his servant 



60 SCHOOL HISTORY 

watched the caravan prepare for the journey. Perhaps 
you never saw a caravan. Let me tell you, then, of the 
one Hiram went with. 

Was it made up of horses, or a train of cars ? Oh, 
no ; instead, it was composed of a long string of camels. 
They used the camels because they could go through 
the deserts better than any other animal and could 
carry a very heavy load upon their backs. As you 
perhaps know, the camel has a large fat hump on his 
back to live on when he cannot get food. The traders 
had to make a frame of wood to go over the fat hump, 
and then they placed the load on the frame instead of 
on the tender hump. Hiram saw that their humps were 
very fat now, when they were starting out, and that each 
camel had a pretty cloth pad over his back. 

When it came time to load, each camel came to the 
loading-place and knelt while his load was being placed 
upon his back. All at once one of the camels began 
crying and rolling over and over on the ground. He 
did this because his master had placed too heavy a load 
upon his back, and he refused to carry it. 

But what had the traders placed in the loads ? Hiram 
asked the drivers about their goods, and found dried 
fruits, nuts, dried fish, dye, ostrich feathers, tin, gold- 
dust and amber. 

At last the traders were upon the camels' backs, 
ready to start. Hiram and his servant were also in 
their saddles. The slaves were ready at the camels' 
heads to lead them. The mule was at the head of the 
line for good luck, and so the camels began taking long 
steps, and the whole caravan moved across the valleys, 
mountains and desert plains. Sometimes eight or ten 



HOW LITTLE HIRAM BECAME KING 6 1 

camels were fastened, one behind the other, by a rope 
which passed from their halters, back along their sides, 
so that they could not run away very fast, and then it 
did not take so many slaves to lead them. I forgot to 
tell you that the king sent a large sum of money with 
the traders to give to the people through whose countries 
they would pass to keep them from robbing the caravan. 

Hiram and the caravan went over the mountains and 
across the plains for many days, and finally reached the 
Indus valley, and there they traded the things in the 
camels' loads for cotton, ebony, ivory, steel, precious 
stones, and skins from wild animals. Among the pre- 
cious stones were hard, velvety green stones called 
emeralds ; a blue, violet, or purple stone called ame- 
thyst ; and a hard rock tinted red, or brown, or green, 
called jaspar. 

At Babylon they got gold and silver, dried bricks, and 
rich pearls. At Damascus they got knives and swords ; 
and from Persia, melons and woolens. In Arabia they 
got more camels and loaded them with spices, frankin- 
cense and myrrh. They got corn (i.e. wheat and 
barley), wine, oil, honey, olives and balsams from the 
Hebrews. From India they got slaves, horses, furs, 
shawls, goats, kids and hides. Before they reached 
home they met another caravan coming from Little 
Kufu's home. These Egyptian traders had corn, honey, 
linen, opals, indigo, opium, gold-dust, slaves, and a 
pretty, hard, yellow stone called topaz. 

By the time Hiram and the traders had reached 
home they were tired, dusty and very dirty, for they 
had little water and soap to use during their journey. 
The camels were all very thin and worn out, for they 



62 SCHOOL HISTORY 

had been gone for a length of time equal to that between 
our Fourth of July and Christmas. When they reached 
the city walls, the loads were taken from the camels' 
backs, and that night in the moonlight you could have 
seen them lying about on the cool, sweet grass, resting 
peacefully, with the tired traders sleeping by their sides, 
or in tents near by. 

When the sun came up the next morning, the traders 
began unpacking their goods, arranging them so that 
they would look as pleasing as possible. The king and 
the city people put on their holiday attire and went down 
to the walls to trade. When the gates were opened, 
Hiram was glad to see his father, but he had learned 
so much he did not feel sorry that he had gone. Then 
the trading began, and what a noise there was ! 

A great thing grew out of all this trading. You see 
that when people trade, as your father and uncle do 
to-day, they cannot always do it all by talking and 
remembering about all the trades they have made, but 
they must write something down. The Phoenicians 
found that they had to do the same way. You know 
that over in Kufu's home, he had to learn and use 
many hundred letters, and that most of them were just 
pictures. The Phoenicians did not have time to use so 
many pictures, so they began turning some of the 
pictures into letters almost like those we have to-day, and 
from so many they selected only twenty-six. Don't you 
think the Phoenicians did a great thing for us when they 
gave us such a small alphabet, and one so easy to learn ? 

Hiram's father was well pleased with what his peo- 
ple were doing. But one thing did not yet please him 
entirely, — - so many things were brought by caravans 



HOW LITTLE HIRAM BECAME KING 63 

and by boats to Phoenicia that could not be used until 
they were changed into something else, such as large 
pieces of tin, amber, hair, or wool. He finally had 
the people begin to make different things from these 
materials. Of course to do this it would sometimes 
take many persons to make just one thing, and they 
began living closer together. They began coming into 
the city of Tyre, and the city grew large very fast. 
You can see on your map that they built other towns - — 
Sidon, Beyrout, Byblus and Tripolis. You must not 
think that those early people built large factories and 
houses to work in like our people. In that olden time 
people made most things by hand. But they made just 
the least beginning of factories as we see them in our 
great cities to-day. 

They wove cotton and woolen cloth, and colored part 
of it a royal purple for the rich people. They took the 
gold and silver, melted it, and formed it into trinkets or 
ornaments, the same as our children make things from 
soft clay ; some of it was placed on pieces of ivory or 
ebony to make idols or images of their gods ; some was 
made into dishes and coins. They also used precious 
stones for jewelry, and to hang on their idols. They 
made beautiful cashmere shawls from the goat hair. 
They made curtains and rugs from the animal skins, as 
well as rich perfumes from the spices, frankincense and 
myrrh. They made bronze from tin and copper, and 
then made statues of the bronze. They melted sand 
and a carbonate of soda together and made vases, 
bottles and other things from the glass. You see that 
they now had many new things to exchange with and 
sell to the people of other countries. These early Phce- 



64 SCHOOL HISTORY 

nicians taught the Greeks and Egyptians many things 
about how to make both beautiful and useful articles, 
as well as how to carry on commerce on the sea. 

During these times, when Tyre was becoming the 
greatest city on all the coast of the Mediterranean, King 
Abibaal died, and our little Hiram, who is just coming 
to be a young man, became king ; so now we shall 
have to call him King Hiram. As king, he helped his 
people as his father had done ; and they, in return, 
raised an army for him. So when his caravans left 
home, he did not have to send money along, as his father 
had done, to buy off the robbers ; but he made treaties 
with all the peoples surrounding his country, so that he 
might trade with them. Tyre grew to be very rich ; and 
being seated on a great rock in the sea, very beautiful also. 

Hiram became a great friend of the Hebrews. When 
he heard that King David was going to build the temple 
in Jerusalem, he sent him word that he would give him 
help. When King David's son, Solomon, became king 
and asked for Phoenicia's help, King Hiram sent him 
cedars from the Lebanon Mountains ; also much stone, 
gold, silver and jewels, and carpenters, masons, gold- 
smiths, silversmiths and many slaves. In this way 
these two great men became good friends. 

When King Hiram was a little boy, his people wor- 
shiped the sun, which they called Baal, and the moon- 
goddess, which they called Astarte. They thought that 
these two gods could do them much good, but if they 
grew angry with them, much harm also ; so, to keep 
them from doing harm, they worshiped them very faith- 
fully. They thought they could make the gods very 
happy by sacrificing to them that which was their dearest 



HOW LITTLE HIRAM BECAME KING 65 

possessions. Thus mothers often threw their babes into 
the fire which was always kept burning in the idol of 
the sun-god in the temple. King Hiram thought this 
was very wrong, and had the people use sheep and kids 
in sacrificing, instead of little children. 

Thus King Hiram helped his people to become rich 
and great and much wiser in religious worship, and 
they in turn have helped us ; for if the Phoenicians had 
not learned to make boats that would sail on the sea, 
and if others had not learned boat-making from them, 
and improved upon it, perhaps Columbus would not 
have had a boat to come across the sea to find our 
country. They gave us the alphabet, which they bor- 
rowed in a less perfect form from the Egyptians ; and 
by sailing to so many countries, taught all the people 
around the Mediterranean many of their first lessons 
about useful and beautiful things. They manufac- 
tured many new things and sent them out over the 
world. Now do you not think that the Phoenicians were 
a great people, even though they did live in a little 
country? If you could go back and live just as these 
children we have been studying about lived, which one 
of the children would you rather be ? — Arya, or Kuf u, 
or Judah, or Ruth, or Hiram, and why ? 

References 

Rawlinson : Story of Phoenicia ; Putnam's Sons, N.Y. 

Sayce : The Ancient Empires of the East; chap. iii. Scribner's 
Sons, N.Y. 

Anderson : The Story of Extinct Civilizations, chap. iv. Apple- 
ton & Co., N.Y. 

Myers and Allen : Ancient History; Ginn & Co., Boston. 

Phoenicia : In Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



HOW THE WORLD CAME TO HAVE BOOKS 

IN IT 

Would it not be a lonely world without any books ? 
Can you imagine a world without any picture books, 
first or second reader, or any story-books of any kind ? 
Yet there was a time, long ago, when there was not a 
single book in the whole world, when there was not 
a lead pencil or pen to write with, or even a single bit 
of paper to write upon. 

But do you not think they would need to know some 
way to write ? How do you think they could send 
messages to each other if they were far apart, keep 
an account of the grain or stock which they bought and 
sold, or an account of the important things they did, 
so that their children and children's children would 
know about them ? They studied and thought about 
it a great deal for thousands of years, and tried many 
different ways, until finally we have our beautiful books, 
just as we have the telephone, the telegraph, and the 
electric lights, partly through other people's study and 
work. 

In that far-away time, if one person wanted to send 
a message to another, who was some distance from him, 
the only way he could do was to send a person, called 
a messenger, to tell him. If they were very far apart, 
this would take a long time, sometimes a year or two. 

66 



HOW THE WORLD CAME TO HAVE BOOKS 67 

Then, maybe the messenger would forget, or change a 
part of the message. 

If they wanted their children and grandchildren to 
know the important things they had done, the only way 
they could do was for the father to tell his children, and 
these children their children, and so on. In this man- 
ner stories were handed down from one generation to 
another for many, many hundreds of years. These 
stories were called traditions or legends. But often- 
times the story, by being told over many times, would be 
greatly changed, until finally they would hardly have 
the same story at all. It would be like the game called 
"gossip," which you play sometimes. One person tells 
another a story, that one repeats it, until, when you 
come to the last one, the story is greatly changed, or 
maybe wholly different from the way it started out. 

Finally some of the people who wanted a better way, 
thought of having messengers take objects along with 
them to show what they meant. If two countries were 
at war, and one wanted to ask the other to give up, or 
surrender, it would send a sword or spear to the other. 
If that one would surrender, it sent back earth and 
water, to show that it would submit. If it would not 
surrender, and wanted to keep on fighting, it sent the 
sword or spear back again. 

Let me tell you about a letter which was written in 
those far-off days. A certain king named Darius wanted 
another king's country for his own, so he sent his 
soldiers to get it. They fought many hard battles but 
could not get the country. Finally the other king sent 
Darius a letter. It was a board with a bird, a frog and 
a mouse fastened upon it. Do you think you could 



68 SCHOOL HISTORY 

read it ? It meant : — " Unless, O Darius, you and your 
soldiers can become as birds and fly through the air, or 
as frogs and hide under the water, or as mice and bur- 
row under the ground, you had better go away ; we will 
kill you with our arrows." 

The Indians in our country used to write much the 
same kind of letters, because they did not think enough 
to make books for themselves, and were too childlike 
and careless to learn what the white people had found 
out about writing and making books. 

Once, when the white people first came here, one of the 
Indian chiefs thought that they meant to take all of his 
land from him, so he decided to drive the whites away. 
He sent an Indian to them with a rattlesnake's skin 
filled with arrows. It meant that if the white people 
did not go away, the Indians would kill them with their 
arrows. The white people sent the skin back filled 
with powder and bullets. It meant : " You Indians 
may come with your arrows if you wish, but if you do, 
we will kill you with our powder and bullets." 

What do you think of that way of writing letters ? 
Do you think it would be always easy to find the objects 
which were needed to make the letters ? Suppose that 
they wanted a fish and were many miles from water, 
what could they do ? If they could not get a real fish, 
they might make a picture of it. And that is what 
they had to do. They finally found out that in sending 
messages or writing down anything, it was much easier 
and better to make the pictures than it was to use the 
objects, so before long they came to use pictures almost 
entirely. 

When they wanted to show that two kings had war, 



HOW THE WORLD CAME TO HAVE BOOKS 69 

they made a picture of two crowned men facing each 
other, with bows in their hands. If they wanted to 
show that one had conquered, they pictured one kneel- 
ing at the feet of the other. 

Once a certain Indian thought that he would keep a 
history of his people by making a picture of the most 
important thing that happened each year. One year, 
many of them had small-pox, so he made a picture of a 
man covered with red spots. Another year many of 
them died of whooping-cough, so he again made a 
picture of a man, with his mouth open, and with marks 
extending from the mouth, showing that he was cough- 
ing very hard. These pictures were made of colored 
beads strung together. 

The Egyptians, who lived long before Christ was 
born, used this same kind of picture-writing, but they 
improved it. At first they used the entire pictures of 
the objects, but gradually began to shorten them by 
drawing straight lines from the corners of the pictures 
to show the general shape, so they could tell what they 
were. This was called hieroglyphic writing. 

They also found out that there are only a few sounds 
which we can make, which we use over and over again 
in our spoken words. They then began to make pic- 
tures to stand for sounds, usually the first sound in the 
name of the object. For example, the name of an ox 
was " aleph," so a picture of an ox's head stood for a, 
instead of ox. A little chick was u, an owl m, a cup 
k, and a lion r. Sometimes, however, three or four 
pictures might stand for the same thing, and this has 
made it hard to read what they wrote. Then, too, 
sometimes the pictures were written across the page, 



yo SCHOOL HISTORY 

as wc write, at other times in columns, as we write 
figures which we wish to add, and at still other times in 
groups here and there. So you see they were not 
always easy to read. 

But would you not like to know how they wrote, and 
what they wrote upon ? You know we said they had no 
paper, pencils, or pens in those days which looked any- 
thing like ours. 

In the marshy parts of Egypt and southern Palestine 
a plant grew which was called papyrus. It grew to be 
about ten feet high and was from three to four inches 
through. I will measure ten feet off here on the black- 
board. It had a pith something like a cornstalk. This 
pith they cut into strips, and the strips were then laid 
side by side until the sheet of paper was from eight to 
ten inches wide. Then they poured Nile water over it, 
and laid other strips side by side across these in the 
opposite direction. Thus, these crossing strips were 
somewhat like the warp and woof of a carpet. Then a 
heavy weight was placed on top to press all tightly 
together ; and when the strips were dry, they stuck 
together as if they had been glued. It made a very 
good sheet of paper. It was called papyrus. If some 
of you will bring a fresh cornstalk in the morning, and 
some glue, we will use it, and try to make paper our- 
selves, somewhat as the old Egyptians made it. 

The pictures were painted upon it with a raveled, or 
frayed, reed, which made a brush something like a small 
paint-brush. The ink was usually red or black. The 
red was made of minerals; the black, of charcoal. For 
writing about their gods, the priests used either the blood 
of sacred animals, or ink made of charcoal, which had 



HOW THE WORLD CAME TO HAVE BOOKS 71 

been made of the burnt bones of sacred animals. Some- 
times the juice of berries was used. Sometimes they 
used a quill pen after they began to draw straight 
marks, or when they made only the outlines of the 
picture. 

After the papyrus had been written upon, it was 
rolled up like a map, with the first part of the writing 
on the outside, so it could be read as it was unrolled. 
At first the rolls were light brown, or tan, in color, but 
grew darker as they grew older. Very valuable rolls 
were put into earthen jars, or cans, and tightly covered, 
so that they might be carefully kept for after genera- 
tions ; and some few fragments of these are found to 
this day, and are very valuable to those who are trying 
to find out just how the old Egyptians lived. 

But papyrus grew to be very expensive as it grew to 
be scarce, so that very few people could afford to use it. 
Many persons then began to write on boards, stones, or 
whatever they could find which was fit to use. Some- 
times when they wanted their writing to last a long time, 
they would cut pictures in stone with a hammer and 
chisel, just as you have seen letters cut in tombstones. 
Many of their tombs are covered to-day with hiero- 
glyphics, and it is by wise men learning to read these 
as well as the papyri that we have found out how people 
lived a long time ago. 

In some countries, Babylonia especially, east of Pal- 
estine, the letters were little wedge-shaped characters. 
This writing was called cuneiform writing. " Cunei- 
form " means " wedge-shaped." The letters were made 
by a small instrument, which looked something like a 
horseshoe nail, the different letters being made by 



72 SCHOOL HISTORY 

placing it in different positions. The letters look very 
strange to us. It took many years to learn all the 
positions for making the words which they used. It 
probably took the boys of Babylonia four or five years 
to learn to read as much as you do in the second reader 
in six months. 

Much of the writing in all old countries was written 
upon clay bricks from two to eighteen inches in 
length, and one to six inches broad. Some of the 
bricks were flat, like ours, and some rounded on top like 
loaves of bread. Such books would seem odd to us. 
Suppose we were going to make a book just as they did 
in those days. We would first go to the clay pit, and 
bring home a pailful of clay, which we would mix and 
work much as we knead bread, until it was about as stiff 
as bread dough. Then we would mold it into a brick, 
perhaps the size of those which you see built into 
the ordinary brick house. Then we would write the 
letters upon the top and sides of it. It would then 
be turned over, and a little wooden pin stuck in each 
corner to keep the writing from being erased while we 
wrote upon the other side. After this was done we 
would have to stick it full of holes, as is done when 
baking dough, to keep it from puffing out of shape 
while baking. Then our brick, or book, would be 
baked in the oven until it was dry and hard. If the 
writing was anything which we wanted very much to 
keep, we would put a new layer of clay over the first 
writing, and write and bake it all over again. When 
the outer writing was worn, this outer layer of clay 
could be chipped off with a trowel ; then we should have 
a new book all ready for use. 



HOW THE WORLD CAME TO HAVE BOOKS 73 

Would it not seem strange to you to bring little clay 
books to school instead of the pretty readers you now 
have ? And instead of the nice white paper which we 
have to write upon, each of us would have to keep a 
pailful of clay at his desk with which to make his own 
books. Then each schoolroom would have to have an 
oven in which the books could be baked. I doubt very 
much if we should like this as well as we do our own 
schoolroom, books, pencils and paper, 

Sometimes the books were written upon parchment. 
I have some parchment at my desk. One piece is a 
college diploma, and the other an old land title. You 
would not think that this had once been the skin of an 
animal, would you ? And yet it was. The skins used 
by the ancient people were tanned carefully, and rubbed 
until they were perfectly smooth and soft. When writ- 
ten upon, they were rolled as were the papyrus books. 

Other books were written upon boards, or stones, cov- 
ered with wax, as, for example, one might write his name 
in a cake of soap with a sharp pencil or stick. They 
wrote with a stylus, a little instrument about as long as 
a lead pencil, sharpened at one end, and feather-shaped 
at the other. They wrote with the sharpened end, then 
smoothed the wax over with the other when they wished 
to erase what was written ; then the wax was ready 
for use again. Sometimes the stylus was made of wood, 
sometimes of ivory and sometimes of gold or silver. 

You remember in our study about the Phoenicians, 
we found out that they were great travelers and 
traders. They needed some quick, easy way of writ- 
ing, so they could keep accounts of what trades they 
had made and what they had seen. In Egypt, where 



74 SCHOOL HISTORY 

they traded much, they learned about hieroglyphic 
writing; so they selected just a few signs for all the 
sounds they used in speech, — about twenty-six in all. 
This made it much easier and quicker for them to learn 
the alphabet than to learn all the hundreds of signs 
which the Egyptians used. When the Phoenicians 
went all round the Mediterranean and traded with 
the people, they taught them the alphabet. And from 
that day to this there has been but little change in it. 
Is it not a great thing that all the thoughts which the 
whole world can think can be expressed in only twenty- 
six signs or letters ? It is really such a wonderful thing 
that those who worked out the alphabet so that people 
can easily write their thoughts in books with so few 
letters, did a greater thing for man than those who 
invented the steam engine, telegraph and telephone. 

Let us now take a peep into one of these old libra- 
ries. We see earthen jars, containing papyrus rolls, 
covered with odd little pictures, rolls of parchment, 
clay tablets, blocks of stone and waxed tablets, some 
covered with hieroglyphics, others with the cuneiform 
writing. We see Egyptian books telling us about their 
kings, country and wonderful gods ; Jewish books 
telling of their one true God, and Phoenician books of 
travel, elegantly written with golden letters upon fine 
linen, or maybe engraved upon gold or silver. It is 
quite a curiosity shop, is it not ? and so different 
from our libraries of to-day. But you must not forget 
that we have in our books to-day the result of the work 
of all these people. If they had not worked out the 
alphabet language, and thus given the world a start, we 
could not have worked out the printing-press, or news- 



HOW THE WORLD CAME TO HAVE BOOKS 75 

papers, or the books of to-day. It has all come about 
— alphabet, writing, books, printing-press and news- 
papers — by each generation learning a little more 
than the last, until we finally know how to write and 
print as we now do ; and doubtless years from now 
other people will know even more about it, and be able 
to do it easier and faster than we do. That is the way 
the world continually grows better. Each person 
begins, and works a lifetime, to learn what he can ; 
then another begins where he leaves off, and adds to 
it ; and thus each generation, as it passes, comes to know 
a little more than the one just passed. But with our 
many good books and papers we shall do well not to 
forget those first patient workers ; for by seeing how 
others in the past have worked to make life better and 
more beautiful for us, we, in turn, come to want to do 
something to make other lives, both in the present 
and future, more useful and happy. 

References 

Rawlings : The Story of Books ; Appleton & Co., N.Y. 
Clodd : The Story of the Alphabet ; Appleton & Co., N.Y. 
Articles in cyclopedias on Writing, Printing, Hieroglyphics, Cunei- 
form writing, Papyrus. 
Day: Alphabets Old and New; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 



THIRD-GRADE WORK 
GREECE 

The aim of the third-grade work is (i) to present the chief geo- 
graphical features of Greece as one strong factor which influenced 
the institutions of the Greeks ; (2) to present historical sketches of the 
life of the people at four different stages of their development : — 

1 . In infancy — Homer's time. 

2. In young manhood — Independence gained by Greece — Per- 
sian Wars. 

3. In prime of life — Age of Pericles. 

4. In old age — Age of Alexander the Great. 

Through story and biography and picture, the pupil should be led 
to see not disconnected lives, but something of Greece's growth to 
a land of great beauty. Then having seen something t)f the thought 
and beauty which the Greeks developed, he should see how Alexan- 
der the Great sowed these seeds broadcast over the East by his con- 
quests, and, by founding Alexandria, built up a great granary, so to 
speak, in which the thought and life of all the past up to that time 
might be stored. Children will, of course, not enter into the fullest 
meaning of all these relations ; but they may be started intelligently 
on a road which will grow clearer as they advance in the higher 
grades, and one which will immediately beautify their own lives and 
surroundings in proportion to the sympathy with which they enter 
into the lives of the joyous, happy and beauty-loving Greeks. 



76 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE 

Last year in our history work we studied the geog- 
raphy of four countries. Two of them — Egypt and 
Babylon — were large and in rich valleys ; the other 
two — Palestine and Phoenicia — were small, had rather 
thin soil, were cut up by hills and mountains, and had 
no great rivers in them. 

In the two great river countries, the people could sail 
up the rivers, which ran from one end of the country to 
the other, and then float back on the current. By this 
means everybody in the country came to know one an- 
other somewhat, and to have much the same ways of 
thinking and living ; and so it was easy for them also to 
have just one ruler, or king. 

But in the small countries we studied, — Palestine 
and Phoenicia, — which were so cut up by rugged 
mountains, and had no great rivers running through 
them, we found it was hard for the people to have just 
one person to rule them. They were much more likely 
to break up into small groups of people, each having its 
own customs and ways of life as well as its own ruler. 
It was so most of the time in Palestine, and almost 
always so in Phoenicia, except that sometimes a great 
king, like Hiram, might rule in Tyre, and have a loose 
control over the other great cities in the country. 

Now all these people whom we have been studying 

77 



78 SCHOOL HISTORY 

about, — the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the Jews, — 
when they grew rich, traded what they had to sell to 
the Phoenicians; and the Phoenicians, brave people 
that they were, went out all over the Mediterranean 
and traded with all the peoples living on its borders, — 
not only taking them wheat, barley, dyes and fruits, 
but also taking many beautiful and useful things, such 
as tools and vessels for farm and household. They 
also taught them the alphabet, which the Eastern 
countries had worked out by patient thought and labor 
of several thousand years. 

One of the very first countries to which the Phoeni- 
cians came, in going westward, was the lands of the 
Greeks. It would take them but five or six days to go 
from their own country to Greece in one of the boats 
which we studied about last year, and not even so long 
as that for them to reach one of the many beautiful 
green islands which lay between their country and 
Greece. 

Now, since we are to study the Greek people this 
year, I want you to see something of the country in 
which they lived. 

If we could have taken one of those triremes with a 
Phoenician trader and gone with him on a trading trip 
to Greece, we would have first noticed, as we came 
within forty or fifty or seventy-five miles of the coun- 
try, a great many islands out in the sea, looking just 
like stepping-stones to tempt people into the Greek 
coast, and to tempt the Greek people, who lived on the 
coast, out to trade with the people around ; and as we 
went on up to the coast of Greece, we would see ever 
so many arms of the sea creeping far up into the coun- 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE 79 

try, making excellent landing places for boats, — just the 
kind of places to get easily what the people had to sell, 
and to trade off to them the things in the boat. And 
it was a fact also that the many islands, scattered out 
in the sea right in the face of Greece, had nearly every 
one of them good harbors. It was also true that the 
arms of the sea ran far up into the mainland of Greece, 
making, all told, so many excellent harbors, that the 
peoples around the Mediterranean easily learned to 
trade with Greece. And the Greeks, on the other hand, 
became active and daring, and traveled much around 
the Mediterranean, trading with everybody and planting 
colonies wherever a favorable trading spot was found. 

But another most striking thing we would have 
noticed as we approached the country on the boat, 
would have been that Greece looked like a mountain 
rising straight out of, the blue Mediterranean. When 
we were far off, it would have looked like one solid 
mountain ; but as we came nearer, say eight or ten miles 
away, we should have thought Greece was nothing but 
mountain peaks and crags. 

The fact is, it was somewhat more than mountain 
peaks, but not so very much more. To begin with, the 
whole country was somewhat smaller than Indiana. It 
was a part of Europe, but its size on the map as com- 
pared to the rest of Europe was about the size of the 
little finger nail as compared to the size of the palm of 
the hand ; and as compared with the size of Asia, it 
would compare about as the size of Rhode Island would 
with the whole of North America. 

But new as to the mountains. There is almost in the 
center of Greece a high mountain called Par-nas'sus. 



80 SCHOOL HISTORY 

It is a beautiful mountain, and persons can climb it. 
We will imagine ourselves on top of it, to get a look 
over Greece. In every direction we would look, we 
would see mountains ; and not very regular ones, either, 
but often knotted and twisted ones running in all direc- 
tions, and of every shape ; then, again, in another direc- 
tion would be a long ridge of mountains like a backbone, 
and running off from it ever so many spurs, like ribs. 
As we stood on top of Parnassus and looked around, 
it would seem like a vast, wild, rugged country. The 
cliffs and crags would be steep and barren ; there would 
be but few roads leading over them on account of their 
steepness. 

But as we looked down toward the feet of these 
rugged cliffs, we would see scattered all about among 
them little plains and upland hollows. The very 
largest of the plains would be perhaps as large as a 
good-sized county ; then some would be as large as a 
township ; others would be smaller, not larger than 
a good-sized farm ; and some would be mere tiny 
patches in a hollow between two mountains, perhaps 
not larger than a good-sized field. 

Now one thing that came about from having Greece 
cut up into so many pieces, and with such high moun- 
tain walls around them, was that hundreds of little 
cities, or villages, as we would often call them, grew up 
all over the country, each having its own customs and 
ways of living, and each its own form of government. 
You see the mountains were so high and so steep, and 
so few paths or roads lead from one side to the other, 
that the people living on the two sides could not be- 
come well acquainted with each other. They grew up 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE 8 1 

not caring much for any Greek people except those living 
in their own little valley. When they did meet others, it 
would be to fight them for some little trouble or other 
which might arise, or simply because they were jealous 
of their growth. If you would imagine each one of the 
principal cities of your own state ruling itself entirely, 
and making all its laws, and fighting the other cities much 
of the time, it would be much like it was in Greece. 

Another thing which made this trouble all the worse 
was the rivers. Greece had no large river running all 
through it from end to end, like the Nile in Egypt or 
the Mississippi in our own country. There were sev- 
eral small rivers in the country, but the mountains were 
so steep and so near the shore that it made the rivers 
very rapid, short and often rocky. There was not a 
single river in all Greece upon which one could travel 
with a boat. In winter and spring, when it rained and 
the snow melted off the mountains, the rivers would 
plunge down the mountain side and with terrible strength 
overflow the meadows (no wonder the Greeks made 
their river-gods having bodies of strong beasts); then in 
the summer time they would be entirely dry. Thus the 
rivers did not make natural roadways from one part of 
the country to another ; and this helped, like the moun- 
tains, to keep the people separated, and caused each 
small group to build up a little city-state by itself and to 
care very little for any of the other city-states. For 
these reasons you can partly see why it was not easy for 
Greece, in all the thousand years her little snarling city- 
states were growing up, to have just one united state and 
one ruler over them all, as we have in the United States. 

But there was another thing about this rugged coun- 



82 SCHOOL HISTORY 

try of which I have been telling you, that was much to 
the advantage of the Greeks. It helped them to de- 
fend their country from enemies. There were very few 
passes in the mountains, and often the mountains would 
come right down to the water's edge and against those 
arms of the sea I told you about, so that there would just 
be room for a wagon to crawl between the sea and the 
steep cliff. Now, if enemies tried to come from the 
north down into the country and capture the Greeks, a 
few brave men could so completely guard these passes 
that they could keep back a whole army. In one of 
these passes Leonidas, the Spartan king, and his brave 
handful of men guarded the pass of Ther-mop'-y-lae and 
kept back for several days the whole Persian army of 
hundreds of thousands of men. 

If the Greeks had not been so selfish and had been 
willing to help one another when the enemies tried to 
get into their country to conquer them, they could have 
so completely stopped up these passes and narrow paths 
as to make it almost impossible for an enemy to con- 
quer them. It was a pity the Greeks never could 
learn to work together — not even in time of greatest 
danger. 

There were several other ways in which the moun- 
tains had an influence on the lives of the Greeks : in 
the first place, they made the soil often rather stony and 
thin, for fully five-sixths of the country was so barren 
and rocky that it was fit only for pasture ; and although 
there were rich spots in places, yet what the Greeks 
got from the soil they had to work for ; this made them 
self-reliant, hardy and full of health, and this was good 
for them. It is not necessarily the country where the 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE 83 

soil is exceedingly rich and people have to work but little 
for a living that has the strongest and wisest men. 

Then another way the mountains influenced the 
people, was in their religion. Some of the peaks were 
high and covered almost all year with snow. This was 
especially true of Mt. Olympus, up in the northeastern 
part of Greece. On the top of this snow-capped, cloud- 
capped mountain, to which they could not climb, the 
Greeks imagined their chief gods and goddesses lived. 
Far up in the snows and clouds they had their homes, 
and only occasionally came down from the top to 
mingle with the people below. These mountains were 
clothed at their feet and far up their sides with groves 
of beech, ash, pine and oak. The Greeks imagined also 
that far above in their upland hollows in the forests, in 
caverns and in quiet places of retreat, many gods and 
goddesses dwelt. In these groves and grottoes priest- 
esses lived, and listened to the murmuring leaves of the 
oaks or breathed in the vapors which came from the 
cavern, and thus tried to find out the way the gods 
wished them to act. These places where they would 
go to consult their gods were called oracles. A very 
famous one, where Zeus was consulted, was at Donona 
in an oak grove in Epirus, in northwestern Greece, but 
the most famous in all Greece was the Oracle of Delphi, 
up on the slope of a mountain adjoining Mt. Parnassus, 
in a cavern from which a vapor came. There was a 
steep cliff immediately above, and a great chasm below. 
Here the richest temple of all Greece was built by the 
money paid by those who came to consult the oracle 
and worship Apollo. 

The mountains^also furnish fine stone for building, 



84 SCHOOL HISTORY 

especially a blue and green stone called porphyry ; and 
a very beautiful marble, which they used for making 
statues, as fine as the world has ever seen. There were 
silver, iron and copper in the mountains, and these 
helped in their commerce by giving them something of 
which to coin money, and likewise something to sell. 
They also furnished them material for making useful 
tools for farm and household. 

In the forests of the mountains, plains and fields, 
were many animals, both tame and wild, which were 
used for food. The wild boar, deer, wolf and bear for 
large game, and the quails, hares, thrushes, partridges, 
pigeons, for small, gave food for the table and enabled 
the Greeks to enjoy the delights of hunting. 

The temperature of Greece was neither very cold nor 
very hot ; the atmosphere was dry and bright ; the 
breezes came in everywhere from the mountains and 
the sea, to cool and refresh; for there was no spot in 
all Greece more than fifteen miles from a mountain or 
forty miles from the sea : all this tended to make the 
Greek quick and energetic. In such a climate he could 
work, take gymnastic exercises, — often without any 
clothing, and never with much, — participate with de- 
light in the festivals to the gods, and enjoy the chase in 
the forest and field. 

Thus we see that notwithstanding the Greek lived in 
a little country, cut up by mountains very greatly, and 
with rather a thin soil, yet take it all in all — moun- 
tain, wood, cliff, rock, sea, river, sky, island and ocean, 
all beautifully combined — it was a delightful and invig- 
orating earth and sky which surrounded him, and stimu- 
lated him to produce the rarest grace and beauty in art 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF GREECE 85 

ever produced by any people in the world. And in the 
festivals which he enjoyed, with music, song and dance ; 
in the worship of the god and goddesses ; in stately pro- 
cessions ; and in their games which gathered together 
all that would delight both body and mind, they lived 
almost as if their life was one continual holiday. The 
Greek's ideal was a beautiful soul in a beautiful body. 
His beautiful country no doubt greatly aided and stimu- 
lated him, as we have seen, to think much about and 
to work out this ideal. 

References 

Tozer : Classical Geography; American Book Co., Cincinnati. 
Botsford : A History of Greece; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Oman : A History of Greece, chap, i ; Longmans & Co., N.Y. 
Curtius : A History of Greece, Vol. I, chap, i ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Duruy : A History of Greece, Vol. I, chap, i ; Estes & Co., Boston. 
Felton : Ancient and Modern Greece ; Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

Boston. 
Myers and Allen : Ancient History; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Kemp : Outline of History for District and Graded Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 



GREECE IN HER INFANCY OR THE TIME 

OF HOMER 

"We will travel to-day, Harold," said the teacher, 
" with our imagination, not to the river Nile nor to 
the Phoenician land with its ships, but to Greece, a 
little country far to the east, jutting out from the 
southern coast of Europe into the Mediterranean Sea, 
and looking like a hand with stubby little fingers. 
This country is four or five days' travel by trireme 
from Egypt, — Kufu's country, — which we studied 
about last year ; and five or six days' travel in a 
Phoenician boat westward with little Ffiram last year 
would have brought us to its green islands and lovely 
shores. I want to tell you about this country when it 
was very young and but few people living in it. We 
will first see it when it is a mere infant, as it were, 
and afterward see it grow to be a man." Harold closed 
his eyes to imagine the sea, mountains, valleys and 
rivers, and when he opened them again he found him- 
self alone in the loveliest valley he had ever seen. Be- 
hind him lay the sea ; to the right were hills crowned 
with tall pine trees ; on the left was a thick wood, and 
beyond it the blue mountain peaks touched the blue 
sky. Harold stopped to pick up a few acorn cups and 
knock a prickly green chestnut bur from the tree. 

He wandered on and presently was much surprised 
to see a stone wall a short distance before him. He 

86 



GREECE IN HER INFANCY 87 

walked in at the open gate. It was nearly dark by 
this time, and he did not know whether he was in a 
house or a barn, for he heard sounds of both animals 
and men ; but being very tired, he lay down on one of 
the benches of polished stone just inside the gate and 
slept soundly until morning. He found his neighbors 
were awake, too. There were cows, a watchdog, sheep, 
goats, and pigs in their pens, built around the inside of 
the square wall ; and there, too, were the rooms for the 
men who tended them, and rooms for the women who 
milked the cows and goats. 

At one end of this court was a long portico with 
columns, which was the entrance to the real house. 
Harold thought he was never in such an odd-looking 
front yard. 

A little boy of Harold's size came and stood by the 
side of one of the columns. He was barefoot and wore 
a garment thrown loosely over the shoulders, for Greece 
was so warm that only on colder days and near the 
mountains did one need much clothing. Harold joined 
Phoenix (for that was the boy's name), and after saying 
a pleasant good morning to a stranger who was folding 
up his bed of skins in the portico, he said, " Come with 
me into the doma (that was what he called the dwelling 
room) and I will ask my father if you may stay with me." 

They passed through a dark hall into a very large 
open room, where there were many men, and were soon 
at the side of a kind-faced man, who said he would be 
glad to have his little son's guest remain with him. He 
was a tall, straight man, and his light yellow hair was 
arranged in long curls. He wore over his chiton (for 
so Phoenix called his dress) a beautiful red cloak. It 



88 SCHOOL HISTORY 

was not a cloak such as we know, but a large square 
piece of cloth beautifully embroidered around the edge, 
draped about the body and fastened on the left shoulder 
with a silver clasp. 

Harold sat on a footstool and looked about him. In 
two rows on either side of the room were wooden col- 
umns which held up the roof. Near the center of the 
room was a large column, and leaning against it were 
a great number of spears, which Phoenix said would be 
used to attack their enemies on the other side of the 
mountains. At one side of the room was a fireplace 
built of brick. There was no chimney, but Harold did 
not mind the smoke, for he was eager to see what was 
being prepared for breakfast. Two slave women, who 
were captives from another valley, cooked the meat. 
They put pieces of beef on iron sticks and slowly 
roasted it over the open fire. A young girl lifted a 
copper kettle from the crane and stirred something 
that very much resembled oatmeal. 

Many men were in the room. Phoenix explained 
that some of these were his older brothers, who were 
married, and who, with their families, had rooms in 
another part of the house, while others were guests 
and strangers, who sat on the hearth-stone and sought 
his father's protection. 

" Come, Phoenix, and take my shield to the room 
above," said the largest and strongest of them all. 
It took both boys to carry it to the apartment over 
the doma. There were so many interesting shields, 
swords, helmets, greaves and spears, besides the house- 
hold goods stowed away, that Harold wished to look 
at them all. He was given one of the prettiest chairs 



GREECE IN HER INFANCY 89 

to use for his own while he was there. It had a 
curved back all in one piece of wood, with a carved 
border, and with a bronze horse embedded in the center. 
It was a comfortable chair, although it had neither 
rockers nor arms. "What a fine store I could have, 
if all these things were mine," thought Harold. 

When they came down, the door of the doma was 
opened, and there stood a gentle woman with a fine 
face, dressed in a long white chiton. She bade her son 
come to his breakfast. Harold followed, and when all 
the children were seated, a little table was set before 
each one. Harold enjoyed his wholesome breakfast of 
goat's milk and barley bread, and was too polite to seem 
to notice the very odd but beautifully shaped spoon and 
bowl given him. After breakfast they went to the large 
garden back of the house, where Phoenix proudly pointed 
out his own special young apple trees, which were bear- 
ing for the first time, the trim rows of asters and the 
abundant crop of beans which he had been taught to 
care for during the summer. Near by was a goose 
pond where Penelope, Phoenix's sister, was throwing 
bread to the geese. 

She presently came to them, and they entered the 
house together — not the room where they first went, but 
the one back of that, where Harold and the others ate 
breakfast, the thalium, or women's room, as it was called. 
There sat the mother and the sisters of Phoenix, sewing. 
The mother passed from one to the other, showing one 
how to turn a hem and another how to arrange the 
colors on the border she was embroidering. Even little 
Penelope was taking stitches in a chiton which was 
intended for her brother's birthday, for all girls among 



QO SCHOOL HISTORY 

the early Greeks learned to sew and spin and to do all 
kinds of household work". Harold could not decide 
which was the prettiest of Phoenix's four older sisters, 
for they were all beautiful ; but he liked Narcissa, the 
one with golden hair, the best, for she was the most 
gentle. A dark-haired little girl, not much older than 
Penelope, carried Narcissa's silk to her, arranged her 
footstool, and brought her a drink. She did not look 
happy, and Harold saw her wipe away the tears as she 
gazed toward the sea; for she remembered how, not many 
months ago, she was stolen from her country and brought 
by the Phoenician and sold to be a sewing-maid in this 
household. Narcissa found her weeping, and kissed her 
softly. Harold wondered if she would ever forget her 
home, and the parents and brothers and sisters from 
whom she had been stolen. 

At dinner time the work was put away, the hunters 
returned, bringing a large stag, and men and women sat 
down in the doma. The slaves brought in jugs of wine 
and cases of water, and these the master mixed in an 
earthen urn of the most beautiful pattern. Its handles 
were traced with gold, and a silver dove perched on each. 
Small tables were brought in, and after being carefully 
washed, were placed, one before each person, for the 
Greeks never all sat at one table to dine as we do. The 
kettle of peas was lifted from the crane and then put 
into small dishes that looked like the saucers Harold 
had seen under his mother's flower-pots, only they were 
not so well shaped. The roasted pork and beef was 
carried to the table of the carvers, and there cut into 
small pieces before being served. Baskets of onions 
were passed around, and barley and wheat bread looked 



GREECE IN HER INFANCY 9 1 

very tempting in baskets-of golden wire. A piece of 
cheese, a cup of olive oil, and a bronze saucer of honey 
completed the food they would have for dinner. Before 
any one ate, a slave poured water from a golden pitcher 
into a basin, and each washed his hands ; for since 
there were no forks, and spoons were little used, the 
fingers needed to be quite clean. Instead of using 
napkins they cleaned their fingers, after the meal, on 
pieces of dough. They drank wine, but it was well 
mixed with water, and the Greek was so temperate in 
its use that he rarely became intoxicated. 

After the tables were removed and the crumbs picked 
up off the floor, the father took his place on a great 
throne-like seat covered with a fine rug. Here he sat 
with the other people grouped around. On one side 
Harold noticed a platform up high, much like the band- 
stand he saw in town. Here musicians sat and played 
upon the harps and sang the songs of the heroes — 
among others a song about the capture of the Golden 
Fleece. " This is very beautiful," said Harold. " Oh, 
wait until we go to the market place and hear Homer," 
said Phoenix. " I will ask my father if we may go with 
him." 

Just then a bugle sounded, and both boys scampered 
away to the outer wall. Coming over the ridge beyond 
the meadow, was a drove of white oxen with glistening 
coats, accompanied by their driver and his servants. 
Phoenix clapped his hands at first, but, thinking again, 
said, " I hope it isn't Narcissa he is coming for." The 
man proudly approached the wall, and entering the doma 
was presented at the throne of the chief. The next day 
when he went away he took Narcissa to be his wife and 



92 SCHOOL HISTORY 

left the oxen, for they were the price her father received 
for her. Narcissa rode a pretty gray horse as she went 
away. The dark-haired little slave girl whom she took 
with her smiled back from the donkey-wagon that held 
the beautiful and useful garments Narcissa and her 
maidens had woven. 

One morning, just after breakfast, the father with 
several of his sons and slaves walked out into the coun- 
try to oversee the men who farmed his land. The men 
who tended the land lived in rude but well-kept huts. 
The father went to the threshing floor, where they saw 
a servant driving a pair of oxen over the barley. Phcenix 
and Harold gathered up what was thrown to the side, for 
Phoenix might have this for his own planting. Harold 
became interested in a man who was using a pick to 
break up the ground, for the plows drawn by oxen were 
not much better than sharpened sticks and did not loosen 
the ground well. Laertes (for that was his name) spoke 
kindly to Harold, and pointed out his hut among the rest. 
He explained that the little bunch of wool which Harold 
noticed on Laertes' door told that a little girl baby had 
come to live in his home. He pointed out for Harold the 
road to the vineyards where the grapes were ripening, and 
let him pet the sheep whose coats were so carefully kept. 
The chariot of a nobleman, with four horses hitched 
abreast, passed by to the race-course ; a soothsayer came 
muttering something about the flight of a flock of 
crows meaning bad luck to the olive crop ; a traveler sat 
down to tie the cord of his sandal. The goats came up 
from the meadows, and the maidens came with earthen 
jars to milk them. Harold had had a lovely day in the 
country, but it was now evening and he bade farewell to 



GREECE IN HER INFANCY 93 

Laertes and returned with the others to the town ; for 
although he had been so interested in the home of 
Phoenix that he had not noticed other houses, he was 
really in a small city just beginning to grow up in a 
beautiful valley, for at this time in Greece there were 
many little independent towns. The houses in each town 
were far apart, and many families often lived in each 
one. 

Early the next morning the men made ready to go to 
the market place. There, after seeing the onions, 
olives, fruits, beans and melons sold, they gathered in 
groups around the porticoes of the market place, and 
the boys listened to a heated discussion of the question 
of waging war against a neighboring valley. Among 
the people Harold noticed Laertes in his coat of lion 
skin and asked him what he was going to say ; but 
Phoenix quickly drew Harold aside and said that Laertes 
would not be allowed to speak, for he was only a laborer, 
and that his father and brothers and others who were 
noblemen would decide what wars should be waged. 
Just then the soothsayer whom Harold had seen that 
day at the farm appeared. Taking a scepter in his 
hands as a sign of authority, he began to speak. He 
said he had dreamed of a returning army and many 
captives, fair women and strong men, of shields and 
plundered gold. All listened attentively, and it was de- 
cided to make war on a neighboring city, chiefly because 
they were jealous of its growth, for the people of the 
city had given no offense. Phoenix loved to hear of 
war, and said that when he was a man he would go 
with war-chariots to every valley and make the chiefs 
give up their gold and silver, that he would bring home 



94 SCHOOL HISTORY 

their men and women as slaves, that he would gain the 
laurel crown in the race-course, and then he would be 
the greatest man in all Greece. 

Presently there appeared in the market place a man 
with head slightly bent forward, with cautious step and 
intent face, who put his hands before him, and finding 
his harp, drew it to him. As his fingers moved gently 
over the strings, a deep silence fell all around him — it 
was Homer, the blind poet. " How delightful ! " whis- 
pered Phoenix ; " he is going to sing more about the 
beautiful Helen and the siege of Troy. About Achilles, 
the brave boy-hero, and Ajax the powerful, and wise 
old Nestor, and the wooden horse. We must listen, for 
he cannot be with us many years, and he who listens 
best now can best tell his sons the story. My father 
says many traditions have been lost because no one 
remembered them well enough to tell them to his sons." 
Harold thought they would remember because the story 
was so beautiful and so beautifully sung. Homer told 
only a part that day, and at evening the boys repeated 
at home parts of what they had heard. 

While Phoenix was taking his lesson in music from 
one of the captive princes, and learning to repeat legends 
and wise sayings after a trusted slave, Harold stole away 
and watched the older boys and men at their contests in 
running and leaping. They had all been trained to be 
great athletes, and even the poorest seemed to Harold 
to be very good. They all did so well he wished every- 
body could be awarded an olive branch, which was given 
only to the victor. 

He liked to play with Phoenix's little cart, and many a 
game of marbles and checkers they enjoyed together, 



GREECE IN HER INFANCY 95 

while Penelope stood by with her kitten in her arms and 
Phoenix's little dog bit at the marbles. 

Seated after play on his beautifully shaped chair, he 
never tired of looking at the furniture of the doma. 
There were chairs, and wooden chests with ivory figures 
on the lids, couches, carpets and rugs, all of which had 
been made by hand. Near the hearth on the floor and 
hanging on the wall were all varieties of earthenware 
vessels and kettles of copper and bronze, for the Phoe- 
nicians had taught the Greeks how to make all these 
things. A large red earthenware vase was placed near 
the cupboard where the goblets stood. This vase was the 
prettiest in the room. It had around its top a picture 
of a hunter and his dogs — done in black. The figures 
looked rather stiff, but they were pretty, considering 
they had to be cut in the vase and then filled with black 
paint. The greatest beauty was in the shape of the 
vase, and in the handles, which were large and sym- 
metrical. On the walls were great plates of brass orna- 
mented with iron. On the great one that hung over the 
door to the thalium was the picture of a tower over the 
city wall. A woman, tall and graceful, stood there with 
a little baby in her arms. She was looking beseechingly 
into the face of a young warrior clad in armor from 
head to foot. Just showing beyond the wall on a hill 
was the army to which he seemed about to return. 
Harold looked so often at this picture that he would 
never forget it. There were many other pictures, and 
all interesting, and, like other pictures of ancient times, 
all made of metals. It is thought by many that at this 
time the Greeks had not yet learned to paint pictures. 

On the day that the men were to start out to battle, all 



96 SCHOOL HISTORY 

assembled in the doma and prepared to offer a sacrifice 
to Ares, the god of war. A strong ox, with a wreath of 
flowers around its neck, was led in and killed before the 
hearth. Part of it was put upon the hearth, which was 
their altar, and burned. By the manner of burning and 
the color of the smoke, the oracles tried to tell what 
would be the result of the battle. Prayers were made 
to Ares, and in the thalium sacrifice was offered to 
Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, and prayers were 
offered that she might protect the household. Then 
the men, clad in armor, with bows*and arrows, and slings, 
and spears, and shields, marched away a few miles 
across the mountains to fight a neighboring city ; for, 
as I told you, one thing the Greek cities never could 
learn was to be friends with one another. 

But Harold and Phoenix remained at home, passing 
many days playing marbles, jack-stones and ball, very 
much as boys do now, till one morning several ox 
carts were drawn up before the outer gate and Phoenix 
and Harold were delighted when they were told they 
might go with a farm hand on a journey to the sea- 
shore to trade with the Phoenicians. In the first cart 
was placed the fine linen and woolen goods that 
Phoenix's mother and sisters had woven. In another 
was wool, and in another the finest of the olives that Laer- 
tes had brought in from the farm. Hirus, the brother 
of the dark-haired little slave girl, drove the oxen for 
Phoenix. As they lay that night on the soft wool, near 
the seashore, and looked up at the clear sky and the 
stars, Phoenix told Harold about the ships and the trade 
of the Phoenicians ; and in the quiet night, after Phoenix 
was asleep, Hirus told Harold how he and his Phoenician 



GREECE IN HER INFANCY 97 

kinsmen had once on the sea been taken captive and 
sold to Phoenix's father. He said they did the finest 
carving and work in metals, and that the Greeks were 
just beginning to learn to do that kind of work. Harold 
at last fell asleep listening to the dark-eyed slave's stories 
of the wonderful work of his people — of how other kings 
hired them to build their temples, of how they braved 
the roughest sea to get tin from distant lands, and of the 
rich palaces of their kings. The next morning they 
were busy trading at the coast. The Phoenicians were 
there in their ships, and everybody was busy. Phoenix 
traded the wool plucked from his own sheep for a silver 
cup. When the wagons went back the next day, they 
were loaded with shields and spears, chairs, tapestries 
and rugs from the countries about Babylon ; jewels and 
wheat from Egypt, and purple dyes, cashmere shawls 
and metal looking-glasses from the land of Phoenicia. 
Thus Harold saw how the beautiful little country of 
Greece learned many of its first lessons about useful 
and beautiful things by trading with the Phoenicians, 
and how the Phoenicians gathered together the things 
made in the countries we studied about last year — 
Egypt, Palestine and Babylon — and brought them west- 
ward and traded them to people who had not yet learned 
to make things so useful and beautiful. 

By the Greeks learning all that the Phoenicians had to 
teach them about the alphabet, about weights and meas- 
ures, about purple dye for making hangings for palaces, 
and robes for kings, about how to tan skins by using the 
root of the evergreen oak of Greece, and how to make 
useful things of iron, copper and silver, they became 
more than the simple farmers which Harold saw as he 



98 SCHOOL HISTORY 

took his trip through the country ; for they soon learned 
to make ships like those which the Phoenicians used, and 
after a time became the greatest traders on the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. 

But although the Greeks at this early time were very 
simple and plain, yet at this very time they wrote a 
book, which people read with as much delight now as 
they did thousands of years ago. It is one of the great- 
est books ever written, telling us most of what we now 
know of early Greece, with her brave heroes and beauti- 
ful women. The book is made up of the songs of 
Homer, and it is called the " Iliad." Boys and girls 
study this book now when they go to college, and in this 
way, although Greece died thousands of years ago, the 
best things the Greeks wrote still live as fresh as ever 
in the life of every good scholar. 

References 

Isham : The Homeric Palace ; Preston & Rounds Co., Providence. 
Timayenus : The Homeric Age ; Appleton & Co., N.Y. 
Jebb : The Age of Homer : Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Guerber : Story of the Greeks; American Bk. Co., Cincinnati. 
Baldwin: Stories of the Olden Time; Scribner & Sons, N.Y. 
Morris: Historical Tales (Greece) ; Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. 
Botsford : A History of Greece ; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Myers and Allen : Ancienf History ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Oman : A History of Greece ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 
Harding : Greek Gods, Heroes, and Men ; Scott, Foresman & Co., 

Chicago. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 



THE YOUTH OF GREECE AND HER 
STRUGGLES FOR LIBERTY 

Phidippides started swiftly from Athens, " over the 
hills and under the dales, down pits and up peaks," 
reaching Sparta, a hundred and fifty miles away, in less 
than two days. His country was in danger, and there 
was not a moment to be lost. He went to ask help of 
the Spartans, for word had come to Athens that the 
Persian king, Darius, was moving straight toward the 
beautiful city to destroy her ;. and to meet Persia, Athens 
would need Sparta's aid. You wonder why this great 
king was coming over to Greece ? He was angry with 
the Athenians, and I will tell you why. 

It was now a long time, four or five hundred years, 
since Homer lived, and Greece had changed in many 
ways. It had grown much richer, and there were 
now the new poets Sappho and Hesiod, and many 
sculptors, who made beautiful statues to represent the 
gods and goddesses, and ornamented the graceful 
Greek temples. 

Every five years the people from all Greece gathered 
to see the Olympic games, which were held in honor of 
their god, Zeus. There the young men and boys 
jumped, ran and wrestled with one another, and those 
who did best received a laurel crown. The boys who 
won were very proud of their crowns. It was at the 

99 
L.of.C. 



100 SCHOOL HISTORY 

games that the poets recited their new poems. Do you 
think that by gathering together in this way the people 
would understand each other better and be willing to 
help one another when they got into difficulty, as Athens 
is now? 

You remember that, in Homer's time, there were little 
city-states scattered about in Greece separated by the 
hills and mountains. Well, these villages have now 
grown into towns and there are many more of them 
than in Homer's time. The people still do not live 
together in one government as they should, if they wish 
to be strong, but perhaps when Darius comes to fight 
Athens they will forget their little jealousies of one an- 
other and will join to protect their beautiful land. Some- 
times, when these cities became crowded or the people 
disliked their king, they left their home-city, and sailed 
away as colonists to build' new homes in Italy, Sicily, 
and far across the JEgQ3.n Sea along the coast of Asia 
Minor. Now, it is about something these cities in Asia 
Minor did that Darius, the Persian king, is angry. You 
do not now quite see why, but I think you will presently. 

But first I must tell you another thing that was 
changed since Homer's time. There were no longer 
kings in the little states ruling the people, except 
at Sparta, which was the largest city in southern 
Greece ; and this king had men called ephors to help 
him. At Athens, the chief city in Attica, there had 
been no king for a long time. Long ago the people 
had grown tired of having one man rule them, and had 
chosen men called archons, and legislators, to rule them 
and make their laws. 

Solon was one of the wisest of these men. He had 



THE YOUTH OF GREECE IOI 

traveled in many lands, in Egypt and Asia, was of noble 
birth, and kind to all the people. The rich had gotten 
most of the power in their hands and left the poor un- 
protected, but when Solon was chosen to be both 
archon and legislator, he made new laws to help the 
common people. They were glad of this, but because 
he did not divide the lands again as had been done 
before and give them a share, they were dissatisfied. 
But Solon saw that the people were better off than 
before, and hoping that they would stay so, he went 
away from Athens to travel again, spending, it is said, 
two years in travel and study — in the wiser and richer 
countries of the Old East. 

Sometimes in the cities of this little land of Greece 
a nobleman who had been disappointed in not getting 
some office which he wanted, or who did not like the 
ruler, would say to the people, that if they would help 
him to put down the rightful ruler of the country so 
that he himself might rule, he would help all the people 
to have an easier time. A man who got the power this 
way was called a tyrant. I want to tell you about the 
tyrant Pisistratus, who seized the power after Solon 
went away. 

Pisistratus came hurriedly driving into Athens one 
day, covered with blood and his mules bleeding. He 
told the people that his enemies had tried to kill him 
because he was the people's friend. This pleased the 
people, and they voted him a bodyguard of soldiers. 
With these he gained control of Athens and ruled for 
many years. He was a good ruler and did much to 
improve Athens. He built the Academy, which was 
something like the beautiful parks in some of our cities, 



102 SCHOOL HISTORY 

and made a fine gymnasium in it, for the boys to 
exercise in. He also built a temple to Athena on the 
Acropolis, — a great rocky hill in the center of Athens. 

But after him came his two sons, and they were not 
so good as their father. One of them was killed, and 
the other, Hippias, was driven out of the country. He 
went to the Persian court, but we shall presently see 
that he came back to Greece. After Hippias, there was 
one more friend of the people, Cleisthenes, who did 
much to help Athens by giving her better laws. After 
him the people were ruled again by archons, and it is 
at this time, 490 years before Christ was born, that Phi- 
dippides ran quickly to Sparta to ask help against the 
Persians. 

The Grecian cities on the coast of Asia Minor had been 
ruled for several years by the Persian king, Cyrus, who 
was a great and good ruler of the Persians ; but a few 
years before this time Cyrus died, and Darius came to 
be the ruler. Before the Persians conquered the Greek 
cities in Asia Minor, these cities had been ruled by 
Croesus of Lydia, the little country just east of them. 
He was kind to them, but the Persians, who liked to 
conquer all the countries about them, not only made the 
Greeks pay much money to them, but they had to be 
the Persian king's soldiers as well. Men who loved 
to rule themselves as dearly as the Greeks would not 
like this. 

Darius, who now ruled over Persia, reaching from the 
Indus River to the ^Egean Sea, found it so large that he 
needed many men to help him govern it. Many of the 
people over whom he ruled were not at all like the real 
Persians, but lived and dressed very differently. Darius 



THE YOUTH OF GREECE 103 

did not care for this, as all he wanted was that they 
should pay him money and fight his battles. Would 
these men make as good soldiers as the Greeks, do you 
think ? 

Not long before Phidippides went to Sparta, the 
Grecian cities in Asia Minor which Darius ruled had 
revolted, and asking help of Athens and Eretria, their 
near kinsmen, they had together burned Sardis, one of 
Darius' richest and finest cities in Asia Minor. This 
was why Darius was so angry with Athens. He soon 
punished the colonies on the coast, and then shot an 
arrow toward Athens, to show that he meant to punish 
her next, but lest he forget (for he had many things 
to do in his great empire), he had a slave say to him 
each day at dinner, " Master, remember the Athenians " ; 
and now he was getting ready to remember them. 
He had sent heralds to the different Grecian cities, 
bidding them send him " earth and water " as a sign 
that they would serve him. Most of the states had 
done so, but Athens had thrown the herald who came 
to her into a pit, and Sparta had thrown hers into a 
well. You may be sure a great king, ruling a vast 
empire, would feel very angry to have a little country 
like Greece treat his messengers in this way. 

When his army was ready, he sent it across the ^Egean 
Sea, toward Athens. As soon as Athens heard that 
the Persians were coming she sent Phidippides, the 
fleet-footed, as I have already told you, to Sparta for 
help ; but Sparta could send no aid because the moon 
was not yet full, and it was against her law to start to 
battle before the full moon ; so Athens was left to 
meet the enemy alone, but she did it bravely. 



104 SCHOOL HISTORY 

When the Persians reached Greece and landed at 
Marathon, led by the traitor Hippias (you remember who 
he was, do you not ? ), they found a little army of the 
Athenians gathered upon the hillside back of Mara- 
thon, eighteen or twenty miles northeast of Athens, 
under the Athenian general, Miltiades, ready to meet 
them. Without waiting for the Persians to begin the 
attack, the Athenians, singing, rushed down into the 
plain on the enemy so furiously that the Persians 
became frightened and confused, but not so the Greeks, 
who fought until the Persians turned and fled to their 
ships. The Greeks followed and destroyed many as 
they tried to get into their boats. One brave Greek 
seized a boat and held it fast till his hand was cut off. 

Marathon was a great victory, and the Athenians 
were very proud of it. Just as the battle was over, the 
Spartans came up, but they were too late to help drive 
the Persians away. The Athenians had fought the great 
battle almost alone, and in after years the thought of it 
led them to do just as great things. 

Miltiades did not let his victorious army camp on the 
battlefield that night and enjoy a feast of the many good 
things which the Persians left, but marched his soldiers 
across the country eighteen miles, without a halt, back 
to Athens. He thought that the Persians would next 
try to capture the city. The tired soldiers had only just 
reached home when they saw the Persians sail into the 
bay near Athens; but when the enemy saw the same 
brave men who had the day before defeated them, ready 
to fight again, they sailed away to their own country in 
Asia as fast as they could. 

After the Persians were gone, Miltiades had the 



THE YOUTH OF GREECE 105 

brazen arms and shields which had been captured 
from them melted and made into a statue of the 
goddess Athena and placed on the Acropolis. Darius 
was so sure that he could defeat the Greeks that he 
had brought a great block of marble along to put up 
in the city as a monument to celebrate his victory ; but 
it was used for a different purpose, for Phidias, the great 
Grecian sculptor, made a beautiful statue from it. 

The Athenians thought they had driven the Persians 
away forever, but there was one wise man in Greece — 
Themistocles — who did not think so. He thought that 
they would come again, so he urged the Athenians to build 
a great many new ships by taxing themselves and from 
the money of their gold mines, for there were excellent 
gold mines near Athens. Another wise and good man, 
called Aristides, thought they did not need any more 
ships and that it would be better to give the money to 
the people. Some of the people thought as Aristides, 
and others wanted to have the ships built. At last they 
saw that one of the men, in order to keep peace in the 
little Athenian state, must be sent away ; so all the peo- 
ple gathered in Athens one day, and each wrote on a 
shell the name of the man he wished to send away. 
When they counted the names, it was found that there 
were six thousand shells for Aristides, which meant that 
he must leave his home and go into another country. 
This was called ostracism. It took this name from the 
name of the shell, or tablet, upon which the vote was 
written. Themistocles then went on building the ships 
until the Greeks had a large fleet. 

While the Greeks were building their ships, Darius 
was getting another army ready to come back to Greece. 



106 SCHOOL HISTORY 

He was so certain he could conquer the Greeks that he 
was going to try again. 

You see he did not know that, even if there were 
not many Greeks, they were very brave and had been 
well trained for war. He did not know what excellent 
training the Greeks obtained in their gymnasiums at 
Athens and how the Spartan boys by severe training, 
gathering reeds for their own rough beds, hunting on 
the mountains, eating coarse food and having to go bare- 
foot winter and summer, became the best soldiers of the 
world in their time. The Spartan women, too, were often 
as brave as the men. They said to their sons, " Bring 
home your shield or come home on it," which meant 
that they must never give up to the enemy. They 
must either conquer him or die fighting him. The Athen- 
ians did not train their children to fight quite so well 
as Sparta did, but they knew how to make good plans 
to capture the enemy. Would these Grecians who 
ruled themselves and loved their homes and children, 
their little farms and gods, fight better than the Persian 
soldiers, who were hired to fight, and fought only for 
the king ? 

Darius had gathered together only part of the second 
army with which he meant to conquer Greece when he 
died, and his son Xerxes took his place. Xerxes did 
not want to fight the Greeks, but his nobles wished him 
to do so ; so, after great preparations, he concluded to 
lead the army himself. 

In gathering together his army he sent heralds all 
over his vast country to tell the people to make ready 
for war. For eight long years he gathered together 
his soldiers, made armor and collected food, built roads 



THE YOUTH OF GREECE \oj 

and trained his men. Would not you think he could 
bring together a large army in eight years ? When 
they were all gathered, they spent the winter in and 
about the city of Sardis in Asia Minor, which the 
Persians had built up again after the Greeks had 
burnt it. 

Early in the spring 480 years before Christ, Xerxes 
started toward Greece with his great army, but it was 
a motley looking mass of men. The king rode in his 
chariot, which was drawn by eight white horses. In 
his gorgeous dress and chariot it must have been a 
beautiful sight. On either side of Xerxes were his best 
soldiers, the Immortals. Those who fought on foot 
wore coats of mail made of metal or quilted linen, which 
covered all the body except the head. They had also 
shields made of wicker-work, which were set in front of 
them, from behind which they shot with bow and arrow. 
Those who rode on horseback had coats of mail to 
cover the entire body, and these men carried a sword 
and knife for weapons. But besides the Immortals 
there were many who could not fight so well. Some 
were dressed in leopard skins and carried bows made 
of the ribs of palm leaves. Their arrows were reeds 
tipped with small, sharp stones, and some had only 
clubs with which to fight. Others had a lasso and 
long knife, while still others had short darts and knives. 
Some of the wilder tribes tried to protect their heads 
with wooden hats, but had no protection whatever for 
their bodies. 

Xerxes, with his mighty army, marched westward 
across the country to the Hellespont, where he had 
had a bridge of boats built for his army to cross on. 



108 SCHOOL HISTORY 

It took a long time for all the soldiers to cross, but at 
last they were all over and marched toward Greece. ■ 

While Xerxes was leading this part of his army 
around to the north, the Persian fleet had crossed the 
^Egean Sea to help him capture the Grecians. 

When the Athenians heard that Xerxes was coming, 
they were filled with fear. Miltiades, who had led them 
at Marathon, was dead, and they did not know who could 
lead them to victory now. Finally they sent for Aristides, 
who, you remember, had been sent away by ostracism. 
Runners were sent from Athens all over Greece to ask 
aid of the different states, but nearly all the people were 
at the Olympic games. Finally the Spartans promised 
to send some soldiers to the narrow pass of Thermopylae, 
which was a narrow road, just wide enough for a chariot 
to creep between the mountains and the sea, leading 
into central Greece. So Leonidas, with three hundred 
of the bravest Spartans and seven hundred Thespians, 
stationed himself there to meet the Persians. 

Leonidas had not been at the pass long before Xerxes 
came. When Xerxes saw so few men, he sent a mes- 
senger to ask the Spartans to give up their arms. Leon- 
idas sent him word to " come and take them." Then 
Leonidas and his men put on their finest armor, combed 
their long hair, and played at games in the sunshine. 
Xerxes thought the Greeks were crazy when he saw 
them combing their long hair, but a traitor Spartan in 
Xerxes' camp told him they always did so before a 
dangerous battle, and it did not mean they were careless 
but determined to fight to the last. Xerxes then sent 
some of his troops against them, but they had to fall 
back ; this happened again and again, and perhaps 



THE YOUTH OF GREECE 109 

Leonidas could have kept the Persians back until the 
rest of the Greeks returned from the games, had not a 
traitor gone to Xerxes and for money offered to show 
him a path which led over the mountains and behind 
Leonidas, who had placed only a few men to guard it. 

Led by the traitor, the Persians came to the guards 
of the path, whom they soon killed, and then they 
marched down the mountain side toward Leonidas. It 
was yet early morning, and there was still time for all 
the Greeks to escape. Leonidas told his men that all 
might go except the Spartans. "We," said he, "must 
stay." Yet he knew that all who remained would be 
killed. The Thespians, who lived in a little city not far 
away, however, refused to go. They were brave, too. 
All day long this handful of men, clothed in brass 
from head to foot, and armed with spears, fought 
against the mighty Persian hosts, and at night not one 
of Leonidas' brave men was left. This, as I have told 
you, was just ten years after the battle of Marathon and 
four hundred and eighty years before the birth of Christ. 
It looked discouraging when the mighty Persian host 
marched through the pass and came on toward Athens. 
Do you think the Persians will now conquer Greece ? 

When the Persians had gained the victory at Ther- 
mopylae, Xerxes, as I said, marched on toward Athens. 
The people of that city fled, and not knowing what to do 
they asked advice of their god, Apollo, at Delphi. The 
answer was, " The wooden walls will defend you and 
your children." The Greeks were not sure what this 
meant, but Themistocles said it meant for them to go 
into their ships, which you remember he had already 
persuaded the Athenians to build. 



110 SCHOOL HISTORY 

All the women and children were put on ships and 
sent away from Athens to the southern part of Greece ; 
then the warriors made the rest of the ships ready to 
fight in the bay of Salamis. The people had just left 
the city when Xerxes marched into Athens and burned 
it. His ships had not helped him much yet, but he 
thought they could surely defeat the little Greek fleet 
which he saw in the bay of Salamis, west of Athens, so 
he had a throne built on a mountain, not far from 
Salamis, that he might watch the battle. 

The Greeks fought so bravely and so well that they 
cut the Persian fleet all to pieces. Xerxes became 
frightened, and taking most of his army, fled to Persia. 
He left quite a large number, however, in Greece, under 
his general, Mardonius ; and not very long after, the 
Greeks fought another battle with him at Platese. In 
this battle the Greeks were completely successful ; and 
when Mardonius saw that he was defeated, he ran away 
with the men he had left, leaving great riches on the 
battlefield. The Greeks were glad to see him leave for 
Persia, for they thought that the Persians would never 
come again. 

Thus, you see, this brave little country had defeated 
a country forty times as large, and by doing so prevented 
a king who cared nothing for common people from 
crushing out the liberty-loving Greeks. It made them 
very proud of themselves, and made them feel as if they 
could do great deeds. If the little city-states of Greece 
could now have been less selfish, and had all worked 
together, they might have done even more than they 
did. It was a pity they never could learn to work 
together. But even as it was, Athens now grew rapidly 



THE YOUTH OF GREECE III 

and did wonderful things, and of these things we will 
next study. 

References 

Botsford: A History of Greece; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 

Plutarch : Lives ; A. L. Burt & Co., N.Y. 

Oman : A History of Greece ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 

Felton : Ancient and Modern Greece; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 

Boston. 
MahafFy : Survey of Greek Civilization; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Myers and Allen : Ancient History ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Harding : Greek Gods, Heroes, and Men ; Scott, Foresman & Co., 

Chicago. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 
Study biographies of Solon, Lycurgus, Leonidas, Themistocles, 

Aristides. 



A VISIT TO ATHENS WHEN GREECE WAS 
IN HER GREATEST BEAUTY 

When the Persians were at last driven away from 
Greece the people had time to look around and see 
what had been done to their country. Do you not 
think it must have been discouraging for them to come 
back and find their homes and temples all burned down ? 
They must now begin all over and make a new city. It 
was surprising to see how quickly this was done. 

One thing that helped them make Athens more 
beautiful than it had ever been before was this very 
war. Let me tell you how this was. All those cities 
in the ^Egean Sea and in Asia Minor that we have 
spoken of were now free from Persia, but they were 
still afraid of the great Persian king. They thought 
Athens the strongest city of Greece, and wanted her to 
help them. So Athens and about two hundred of the 
cities around and in the ^Egean Sea joined in a league, 
with Athens at the head. Another league was formed 
of the cities in southern Greece with Sparta at the 
head. Once a year men from each of these leagues 
met on the island of Delos to worship and to talk over 
important things about the union. If any of the cities 
had warships, they gave them to Athens to use ; or if 
they had none, they gave money each year, and Athens 
built ships with it. This money was kept in Apollo's 

112 



A VISIT TO ATHENS 113 

temple, on the island of Delos, and the temple grew 
very rich. But after a while Athens had as many ships 
as she thought she needed, and as the Persians did not 
come back again, she began to use this money to build 
up her own city. Thus you see how this war helped to 
make Athens more beautiful than she had ever been 
before. Besides making her people free and proud of 
their city, it gave them plenty of money to use. 

I want to tell you now about a great man who lived 
in Athens at this time, and did more than any one 
else to make the city great and beautiful. His name 
was Pericles. He was a very handsome man, but that 
is not why we remember him. He was such a fine 
speaker that he generally made the Athenians believe 
what he said, and he easily led them to do what he 
wanted them to do. But even that is not the great 
thing. It is because he got them to do so many wise 
things and made Athens great as well as himself, that 
we remember him. Pericles had many wonderful build- 
ings erected ; some of them I want to tell you about. 
I wish I might take you there and let you see them 
all as they were. If we could really go to Athens, we 
could see only the ruins of many of them, and often only 
the places where some stood ; for you must remember 
that Pericles has been dead more than two thousand 
years, and the beautiful buildings he had built are, many 
of them, crumbling to pieces, and some of them are 
entirely gone. Since we cannot see them, let us, 
with the help of our pictures and what I can tell you 
from books I have read, try to get some idea of what 
Athens was like when Pericles lived. 

You remember the Acropolis, of course, but you 



114 SCHOOL HISTORY 

would hardly know it now. You must imagine it in the 
southwestern part of the city, a steep, high hill a thou- 
sand feet long and five hundred wide, with walls around 
the top to make it still steeper, so that no enemy could 
climb up the sides. Pericles had a flight of steps built 
up on the west side. They were seventy-one feet wide, 
rose by a gentle slope upward and were easy to climb. 

Let us imagine ourselves at the foot of these steps, 
ready to go up and look at Athens in all her beauty. 
Can you think how it would really seem to be there, with 
marble buildings and statues all around us ? Now we 
will climb the steps, and when we come to the top we 
will pass into what they call a colonnade, which is 
much like a long path, bordered with beautiful columns 
and covered over ; in fact, it was just two long rows of tall, 
beautiful columns holding up a roof. The gateways open- 
ing into this colonnade were called the Propylaea, and 
the Greeks were very proud of them, for they formed most 
beautiful openings leading up to the doors of the temples. 

After we pass through the Propylaea, we find our- 
selves on top of the Acropolis, facing the east, for we 
came up the west side. Almost in front of us is a great 
image of Athena, who, you remember, was Athens' best- 
loved goddess. This image, or statue, as it was called, 
was so tall that men far out at sea, miles away from 
Athens, could see it. It made the Athenians very happy 
to feel that Athena was thus watching over them and 
ready to help them. On our right hand, still facing east, 
was the most beautiful temple of Greece, and indeed, 
though there have been many greater ones, there has 
never been another one built in the world quite so 
graceful and pleasing. The pictures I have for you 



A VISIT TO ATHENS 115 

to see will give you a better idea of how it looked than 
my words will. It was built in honor of and as the 
home of Athena, and was called the Parthenon. It 
was 226 feet long, 101 feet wide, and it took sixteen 
years to build it. A little distance away, it looks as 
if it were mostly rows of columns and not much build- 
ing, but there are two large rooms, which are surrounded 
by the columns you see, — one is used in which to store 
the gold belonging to the Delian league of which I 
told you a little while ago. It is kept in Athens now, 
instead of at Delos. In the second room is one of the 
most beautiful statues that was ever made. You would 
know right away it was Athena, by her helmet and shield 
and the serpent coiled at her feet. It was made of ivory 
and gold, by Phidias, one of the very greatest artists of 
the world, who could carve marble or ivory into most 
beautiful shapes of men, women and animals. In many 
places on the Parthenon we can find Phidias' work. 
Here at the end, right under the roof, is some, and inside, 
clear around the rooms I told you of, is a broad strip of 
carved work which he did. Over on another part of the 
Acropolis is another very beautiful temple, called the 
Erechtheum, because it was built for the god Erechtheus. 
One odd as well as beautiful part of it was the porches, 
which instead of pillars to hold them up had figures of 
beautiful maidens carved in stone. You can see them 
here in the picture. We could stay a long time on the 
Acropolis, because, though not very large, it has a great 
many things to see ; but let us pass again through the 
Propylaea, down the steps and into the city, for I want 
you to see some other wonderful things which Pericles 
gave to Athens. 



Il6 SCHOOL HISTORY 

You will be interested in what the boys of Athens 
are doing, so I will take you now to a gymnasium, for 
the Greeks loved a straight, healthy body quite as 
much as a beautiful building or statue. Pericles was 
one who believed that Athens needed strong, brave, 
perfect men, and the best way he knew to get them 
was to train together both the bodies and minds of the 
boys. So he did all he could to make their gymnasiums 
beautiful, and fitted them up with everything they needed 
in their exercises. They were all outside the city, so we 
will have to leave Athens to see them. All the Athenian 
boys are sent to the gymnasium as soon as they are old 
enough, and they spend the whole day, from sunrise to 
sunset, there. What do they all do there ? I cannot 
begin to tell you all of it. They have teachers, who 
teach them the different exercises that are to make them 
strong and manly as well as beautiful ; and the Greeks 
believed that to have a beautiful mind one must have also 
a beautiful body. They are stripped in the gymnasium 
of all their clothing, for the Athenian boys must learn to 
bear the hot sun or the cold winds without flinching ; 
but you remember that the climate of Greece was gener- 
ally very delightful, neither very cold nor very hot. In 
one part of the gymnasium is a race course, sprinkled 
several inches deep with loose sand, where the boys race 
with each other; not very easy work, do you think ? The 
sand is put there on purpose to make it hard for them 
to run. In another place you see boys getting ready to 
wrestle ; their bodies are oiled, then sprinkled over with 
fine sand, so they can hold each other better. This is 
rough work, but it exercises the whole body, and so is 
good for health and strength. We must not stop to see 



A VISIT TO ATHENS 117 

the other work now, but I may tell you that besides 
these exercises they are taught among others to box, 
throw the spear, jump, wrestle and run races. But the 
Greeks did not like a man who could use only his body 
and not his mind, so they wanted their boys taught more 
than bodily exercise. All around three sides of the 
gymnasium were halls, with seats in them, where people 
could sit and talk. If you come with me to one of 
these halls, you will see one of the most interesting 
things in Greece, and I believe you will think it a fine 
kind of school. Here is a group of boys gathered 
around a man who is talking to them in a very plain, 
friendly way. Does that look like a school ? Not much 
like our schools, you will say. Before we join the group 
I will tell you a little about the teacher, so you will under- 
stand better what they are doing. He is one of the men 
whom the Greeks call philosophers, which means lovers 
of knowledge. These men spend their lives trying 
to find out the truth about everything. They wish to 
know how the world came to be, what men ought to 
live for, and how a man should act in order that his 
life may be made best worth living. They meet the 
boys and young men and talk about these things 
with them. The boys ask them questions, and they 
answer the best they can, and ask questions of the 
boys in turn. These philosophers, especially those 
like the one I am going to tell you about, because they 
thought so much of simple life and were interested in 
common plain people wherever they met them, were 
much like our great Lincoln. Now we will go and see 
what this group is talking about. You must not laugh 
at the odd look of the teacher. He does not look like 



Il8 SCHOOL HISTORY 

a Greek, for he is very ugly. His body is heavy and 
not at all a good shape, his nose is flat, and his 
eyes bulge out, and roll about in a very strange way. 
He is not at all well dressed, but these boys all seem to 
love him dearly ; and after we listen a while and hear his 
fine lesson, showing that the beauty which springs from 
a well-trained mind is the greatest and truest beauty 
one can have, you forget how ugly he is, and wish you 
were an Athenian boy, and might come, when your 
lesson in the gymnasium is over, and talk to this won- 
derful man. Do you know the name of this great 
teacher ? It is Socrates, the greatest philosopher of 
Greece. We must not think when we leave the gym- 
nasium and go back to the city we shall not see Socrates 
again, for he is everywhere, from day to day, — in the 
streets or wherever he finds young men ready to listen 
and to talk about temperance, or play, or oratory, or elo- 
quence, or any question about how to get most pleasure 
and profit out of life. He begins always by saying some- 
thing that causes those who hear him to listen and 
think, and before they know it he has them taking a 
lively part in the discussion. As you cannot stay long 
in Athens, I will tell you, before we go on, what is to 
become of Socrates at last. It is very sad. He is never 
afraid to tell people when they are wrong ; and he thinks 
many things men do are wrong, and tells them so. For 
this reason many people dislike him, and finally they 
say that he does not truly worship the Greek gods, and 
that he teaches the young men bad habits, because some 
of his pupils are very bad men. This is not because of 
what Socrates teaches them, but because they do not 
follow what he teaches. But the people do not believe 



A VISIT TO ATHENS 



1 19 



this, and they say he must die. So they compel him to 
drink a cup of poison, and he takes it very bravely, 
with his sorrowing pupils about him, calmly teaching 
them' to the very last how to live a true life in this 
world, and giving them some of the best reasons for 
believing in a life after death. 

Where shall we go next ? I wonder if you would not 
like to see where the laws of Athens are made. Come, 
then, let us see which way to go. We can always find 
the Acropolis, so let us start from there. We go about 
a quarter of a mile west, when we come to a large plat- 
form which has been built in an open square. It is 
called the Pnyx. Here all the citizens of Athens who 
are over eighteen years of age meet and pass laws for 
the city ; for Athens is a democracy now, in Pericles' 
time, and all the people help to rule the little state. 
There is a meeting of the Assembly, as it is called, 
about forty times a year, or oftener, if it is needed. On 
Assembly days the citizens meet by daybreak, for the 
Athenians believe in getting up early. Sacrifices are 
offered to the gods first, then the omens are taken, and 
then business begins. Some man is leader, and he 
rules the meeting for that day. Socrates was often 
leader of the Assembly and often kept the people from 
doing hasty and wrong things. Any one has a right to 
talk in this meeting, only he must come out in front and 
stand on a large block of stone while he talks. This is 
called the " bema stone." Some one proposes something 
which he wants the people to do. To-day they are to 
decide whether or not they shall pay the citizens who 
come to the Assembly to vote. Some are against it, 
saying that those who love their country should serve it 



120 SCHOOL HISTORY 

without pay ; others are for it, saying that only the rich 
people can afford to give their time. So the discussion 
goes on, each one as he speaks coming forward and 
mounting the bema stone. Finally Pericles comes for- 
ward to speak, and all are eager to hear. He speaks in 
favor of paying the citizens, not only for attending the 
Assembly, but also favors giving tickets to the theater 
to those who could not afford to buy them ; for the 
theater to the Greek was a great source of education, 
and Pericles wished everybody to have an equal chance 
for education ; so finally the vote is taken, and they 
decide to pay the citizens for serving on juries, attend- 
ing the Assembly and the like, and also to give the 
people tickets to the theater. A government in which 
all the people come together like this and discuss mat- 
ters and decide them is called a pure democracy. You 
notice they vote by holding up their hands, — that is one 
reason they never hold meetings after dark. They have 
no good way of lighting as we have. Did you know 
that the man who proposed the law they were discussing 
to-day was not just an ordinary member of the Assem- 
bly ? He is what is called a Councilor. The Council 
is made up of five hundred men from the different 
tribes. These men meet every day and talk over laws, 
and the Assembly can vote only on the questions which 
the Council has already talked over. The man who 
ruled the Assembly was also appointed by the Council. 

I told you the Council met every day. That is not 
quite right. Twice a year they have no meetings ; those 
are the feast times of the year. One thing about these 
feast times you must see before you leave Athens. 

We will go to the Acropolis again and pass around 



A VISIT TO ATHENS 121 

to the southwest side, and look at the great Greek 
theater. Does it not remind you of the way the amphi- 
theater at the fair is built ? But there is much difference ; 
here the seats are steps cut in the rocky hillside, and 
are made of marble. They are arranged in a half- 
circle, and down on the level ground is what we would 
call the stage, where the singing and acting took place. 
The Greeks did not go to the theater just to have a 
pleasant time, as we do. It was like going to church to 
them. They did it in honor of their gods. This one 
where we now are is built in honor of Dionysius, one 
of their gods. Men who write plays have them acted 
at these feast times, and there are judges to see which 
one is the best. Before daylight on feast days people 
begin coming to the theater to get good seats. The 
great people and officers and judges, have special seats. 
The people bring fruit and cakes along for lunch, for 
they expect to stay all day. The play begins, and 
everybody listens very closely. The actors do not 
have a very easy time unless they are very good, for 
if they so much as pronounce a word wrong, the people 
hiss at them and pelt them with figs and raisins. But 
if they are pleased, they show it just as plainly. After 
one part of a play is finished, the people rest a little, 
then another one begins, and so on all day long. 
Nearly every one in Athens is there : think what a large 
place this theater is ! It would hold thirty thousand 
people. It is not easy for the actors to speak so as to 
be heard by so many people in the open air, and they 
use a kind of speaking trumpet to speak through ; then 
they wear what they call masks, which are like false 
faces and cover their heads entirely. With these masks 



122 SCHOOL HISTORY 

they can make themselves look like any one they choose. 
They are so far away from many of the people that 
they look very small, so they wear shoes with very thick 
soles and use a great many ways of making themselves 
look large. Some of the greatest Greek poets wrote 
plays to be acted in this theater ; and we read and study 
to-day in the colleges in our country, the very plays 
these Greeks are going to see. 

There are many more things it would delight us to 
see in Athens, but there is one thing you must yet see 
in Greece before we leave it. Afterward you may take 
these books and read about them for yourselves. 

In the southwestern part of Greece, near the shore 
of the sea, in a little river valley, is a place called 
Olympia, in the country of Elis, which every Greek 
knew about. Every fourth year, from all over Greece, 
people went to Olympia for the games. They came in 
the very hottest part of summer, in what we would call 
July or August, though the Greeks did not have those 
names for months. During the time of these games 
no Greek state could be at war with another, and Elis 
was to be protected by all. The roads that led to 
Olympia were repaired and made safe for travelers. 
You remember, at the time of the battles of Marathon 
and Thermopylae, the Spartans would hardly send 
help because they were then holding their games. Like 
the plays at the theater, these games were in honor of 
a god. Those at Olympia were in honor of Zeus, the 
king of gods. There was no real town at Olympia, 
with hotels or places for the people to stay in, so the 
crowds lived in tents during the games. They came 
to Olympia from all over Greece, the islands of the 



A VISIT TO ATHENS 123 

y£gean, Asia Minor, Italy, everywhere that Greeks 
were to be found. They brought animals with them to 
sacrifice to the gods. Now we will imagine we have 
gone to the games. We are not the first ones there, 
for people whose friends are going to take part have 
been here a month or so already, and the people who 
are to be in the games have been here ten months 
already, practicing in the gymnasium at Olympia. On 
the eleventh day of the month the games begin. We 
must be on hand early if we get a place. It will be a 
long day, the sun is hot, and it is dusty. We must not 
wear hats, because it is not thought respectful to the 
gods to wear hats at these games. This first day 
sacrifices of oxen and sheep and goats are to be offered 
to the gods, and the people who are to take part are 
to draw lots, and thus decide when their time comes. 
Very little else will be done on this day. The second day 
the boys have their games, and run and wrestle and box 
and do many of the things they have been taught in 
the gymnasiums at home. But the third day is the great 
day, for then the men have their contests. They do 
about the same things that the boys did, only ever so 
much better. Thus the games continue for another day ; 
then on the fifth day there will be many processions 
and feasts for the victors. Those who win are shown 
the highest possible honor, for to win in the Olympian 
games is thought to be the greatest thing a Greek can 
do. The winners are crowned with branches of olive, 
cut with a golden knife by a lad from the sacred wild- 
olive tree of Olympia, and palm branches are placed 
within their hands. They are then shown to the people 
while their names are proclaimed aloud by a herald, 



124 SCHOOL HISTORY 

and their fathers' names also, and the country from 
which they come. When they go home, they are treated 
with the highest honor. A piece of the city wall is 
torn down, so they need not come in like common peo- 
ple, and to show that if all the citizens were as strong as 
the victor, the city would not need walls ; their statues 
will be put up in the market place, and all the rest of 
their lives they will be treated with the greatest respect. 

Do the Athenians ever work, you ask, or do they spend 
all their time in the gymnasiums, theater, and games ? 
Well, the real Athenian does not do much work, for the 
work on the farms and in the city is done mostly by 
slaves. Greece did not have so many slaves at first in 
the time of Homer, or even when she was fighting her 
brave battles with Persia, and what slaves she did have 
had a pretty easy time ; but in the time of Pericles there 
are perhaps ten slaves to every freeman, and the 
story of how they lived would be very sad indeed. The 
Athenian thinks it is his chief work to make the laws, 
write poems, carve statues, build temples, attend games 
and fight the battles of Athens, not to plow her fields 
or row her triremes. 

Now our short visit to Athens is over, but we shall 
yet study about some of the great men of Greece in 
Pericles' time. We have seen her at the time when she 
was most beautiful, for before Pericles died a dreadful 
war broke out between Athens and Sparta, which lasted 
thirty years ; and at the end of that time Athens was 
forced to tear down her walls, give up her ships, and 
was never again the ruler of Greece. But we have seen 
in this little visit many of the beautiful things which 
Athens made ; and though Athens is soon overcome by 



A VISIT TO ATHENS 125 

other rulers, the sculpture and architecture and poetry 
and philosophy which she worked out so carefully 
and so wisely was not lost but spread out all over the 
Eastern world by Alexander. This we will presently 
study about; and finally in the sixth grade, when we 
study the Renascence, we shall see how all this beauty 
was carried westward into Europe. And we shall further 
see in the eighth grade how we, in America, when we 
build a beautiful building, or place a statue in our homes, 
or in a public library, or museum, or schoolroom, or 
when we paint a beautiful picture, or write a fine poem, 
or make our own bodies straight and strong, and fit 
places for the growth of fine minds, that we have 
learned how to do very much of all this from these 
happy, free, art-loving Greeks. The little country of 
Greece did not teach as great a lesson of religion as 
the Jews taught, or trade over so much of the world 
as little Phoenicia, but they taught lessons of how to 
think and speak clearly, and how to carve, build and 
write so beautifully that the whole world still turns to 
Greece as its greatest teacher in these things. 



References 

Blumner : The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks ; Cassell & Co., 

N.Y. 
Mahaffy : Old Greek Life; American Bk. Co., Cincinnati. 
Botsford : A History of Greece; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Grant : The Periclean Age; Scanner's Sons, N.Y. 
Oman : A History of Greece; Longmans, Green & Co, N.Y. 
Myers and Allen : Ancient History; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Guerber : Story of the Greeks; American Bk. Co., Cincinnati. 
Plutarch : Biography of Pericles; A. L. Burt, N.Y. 



126 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Harding : Greek Gods, Heroes, and Men; Scott, Foresman & Co., 

Chicago. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 
Harrison : Calendar of Great Men (excellent short biographies of 

eminent Greeks) ; Macmillan Co., London. 
Study the biographies of Pericles, Phidias and Socrates. 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 

What do you think became of Athens, with all its 
beauty, which Pericles loved so well ? 

I will tell you. Just two years before Pericles died, 
that is, 431 years before Christ, Athens and Sparta and 
the other states of Greece began to fight each other as 
they often had done before, and for nearly a hundred 
years they quarreled most of the time. So many battles 
were fought that in the end all the states had become 
very weak and were without power, for they had lost a 
large number of their best men. Just then, for almost 
the first time, they began to hear of Macedonia. 

Macedonia was a mountainous country about twice 
as far north of Athens as Sparta was southwest of it. 
Its people were Greeks, too, but in many ways they 
were not like the Greeks of Athens and Sparta. 

Why had Macedonia not been heard of before ? It 
was because its people still lived in country tribes and 
had not learned to live in cities. They did not have fine 
large temples for their gods until many years after the 
Athenians had. Great forests covered most of the coun- 
try, and the people lived in rude houses and fed their 
few sheep on the mountain sides. They were fond of 
hunting, and often had to fight the wild beasts which 
came to steal away their sheep. 

127 



128 SCHOOL HISTORY 

No boy could sit at the table with men until he had 
killed a wild boar, and every one that had not yet killed 
a foe must wear a rope around his body to show he was 
not yet free. Such wild life, and such struggles as 
these, made them brave and warlike, and they became 
most excellent fighters. 

Once the Macedonians fought with Thebes and were 
overcome, and the people of Thebes made the king of 
Macedonia give them his little son Philip as a pledge 
that he would not trouble them again. While Philip 
was growing up at Thebes, he found out that the Greek 
cities were very jealous of each other, and kept fighting 
and trying to destroy each other. 

When at last Philip's father died and Philip was 
allowed to go back home to be the king of Macedonia, 
he began to train his hardy, rough shepherds to fight. 
He taught them what he had learned at Thebes. He 
formed what was called a phalanx. Each soldier in 
the phalanx carried a light shield and a spear twenty- 
one feet long. When they advanced, they were taught 
to place their shields together, somewhat like the scales 
on a fish, so as to form a wall, and they stood in rows, 
one behind another, sixteen men deep. Each soldier 
grasped the spear six feet from the front end, thrusting 
it forward just over the shoulders of those who stood 
before him ; thus each man in the front row had four 
spears pointing before him. 

Philip had seen how weak the Greek cities had become 
by their long wars, for they never learned to be true 
friends of one another ; so he decided he would make 
war upon them, and in this way become ruler of all the 
Greeks. 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 129 

Athens and Sparta and Thebes and all the rest of the 
Greek cities ceased quarreling for a little time, and united 
when they saw Philip coming; but in one great battle he 
defeated them all, and they were forced to choose him 
as their leader. So at last, you see, the Greek cities 
were no longer free, but all had become a part of Mace- 
donia, and Philip was king over all of them. 

Philip now asked them to join with him in making 
war on their old enemy Persia, who, you remember, had 
fought Greece, and burnt Athens to the ground about 
one hundred and fifty years before this time. He began 
to get his soldiers ready to start. Soon after this he 
was holding a great feast and games on his daughter's 
wedding day, and in the midst of the rejoicing he was 
murdered. 

His son Alexander now became king. Alexander 
was only twenty years old, but he soon showed that he 
was even a greater king than his father had been. Two 
years before, when he was only eighteen, he had fought 
in the great battle in which the Macedonians had over- 
come the other Greeks, and his father had praised him 
for his bravery. 

When he was thirteen, a beautiful but wild and fiery 
horse was brought to his father's court. None of the 
king's men could manage it, so King Philip had ordered 
them to take it away, when Alexander said, " I could 
manage that horse better than those men do." Philip, 
hearing him say it, let him try. Alexander saw the 
horse was afraid *of its shadow. So he turned the 
horse directly toward the sun, in order that it might not 
see the shadow. He stroked it gently, and soon *it 
became very quiet. Then he gave a quick leap and 



130 SCHOOL HISTORY 

was on the horse's back. At first it tried to throw 
him off, but Alexander managed it so well that soon he 
was riding about as if it were an old and gentle horse. 
He was very fond of it, and named it Bucephalus. 
In later years Bucephalus carried him safely through 
many battles, and at last, when the faithful animal be- 
came old and died, Alexander built a city and named 
it Bucephalia. 

Alexander was not only brave, but he was also stu- 
dious. His father got for him the best teachers that 
could be found. He sent for Aristotle, the wisest man 
in all Greece. The boy loved Aristotle and studied 
hard. He thought there was nothing too hard for him 
to learn, but he liked the " Iliad " best of all, for it told 
of wars and the old Trojan and Greek heroes. It is 
said he knew it all by heart. 

While he was yet a boy, the king of Persia sent some 
men to Philip on a matter of business, but Philip did not 
happen to be at home. So Alexander had to entertain 
the men. Although a boy, he surprised them by the 
intelligent questions he asked about Persia. He wanted 
to know how far they had come, and if the roads were 
good; how large was the king's army, and whether the 
people liked him, and many other things like these. 

Once, when he heard that his father had captured an- 
other city, he said to his playmates, " My father will go 
on until he has conquered all the cities, and there will be 
none left for us to take when I am king." 

But as I have said, Philip was killed when Alexander 
was only twenty. Alexander soon showed that he could 
manage a state as well as he had managed Bucephalus. 
Because he was so young, the Greeks whom his father 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 131 

had conquered thought they could easily win back their 
freedom. But Alexander marched swiftly from one end 
of his kingdom to the other, overcoming them every- 
where, and soon things were quiet again. Then he 
decided to take up his father's plan of conquering 
Persia. 

Very soon he had gathered an army of about thirty 
thousand and was ready to start. Soon they had reached 
the Hellespont and were ready to cross into Asia. Here 
is where Xerxes had crossed into Europe on his bridge 
of boats one hundred and fifty years before, when he 
came with a million men to conquer Greece. Alexander 
is now crossing to conquer Persia. 

But can he do it ? Persia is fifty times as large as 
Macedonia, including all Greece, and has an army more 
than twenty times as large as Alexander's. But you 
remember the Macedonian phalanx. We are now to 
see if a small army with a brave leader like Alexander 
is more powerful than a large army with a poor leader 
like Darius, the king of Persia. 

Soon they crossed the Hellespont. Alexander him- 
self guided one of the vessels, and when they came near 
the shore he hurled his spear into the bank, to show his 
men how he aimed to conquer Persia. He was the first 
one to jump ashore ; and how he must have felt, for now 
he was in the land of Troy, — the land of the hero 
Achilles, the warrior whom he had worshiped from 
childhood, and whom he loved to think he was like, — 
the land of Paris and Helen and old King Priam, the 
heroes of whom Homer had sung. 

He went to the spot where the proud city of Troy had 
stood so long ago. He found the places where it was 



132 SCHOOL HISTORY 

said Achilles had fought and where he lay buried. In 
order to show him honor, Alexander told his men to 
celebrate the games. So all the warriors put aside, for 
a few days, thoughts of war and danger, and enjoyed 
themselves as they used to do in the gymnasium at 
home. Through all the years of marching and fighting 
Alexander never forgot the games his soldiers knew 
and loved, and often they laid aside .the dangers of war, 
and by hunting, the theater, and the gymnastic sports, 
enjoyed themselves in the camp. But Alexander did 
more than this, for he ordered a new city to be built 
where Troy had once stood, and he named it Ilium in 
honor of the old city and his most treasured book, the 
" Iliad." 

Alexander longed to fight as the ancient Greeks at 
Troy had fought. He wanted to win a glorious victory. 
His wishes were soon to be granted, for he had not gone 
far eastward when he came to the Granicus River, in 
Asia Minor, where the Persian army was placed, so that 
he must drive them away if he wished to cross. 

The Macedonian king did not hesitate. He mounted 
his horse and asked the men to remember how well they 
had fought for his father. The command was given for 
the battle to begin, when on they went, through the val- 
ley and river, singing the battle hymn. Alexander was 
in the thickest of the fight. His lance was broken. He 
was hit on the head by a sword, and a piece of his helmet 
was broken. He would certainly have been killed, had 
not his friend Clitus rushed to his aid and saved his 
life. In spite of the size of the Persian army, he com- 
pletely scattered all of it and won a great victory. By one 
battle he had freed all of the Greek cities in Asia Minor. 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 133 

Marching on, Alexander came to the city of Gordium, 
once the home of greedy, rich King Midas, who wanted 
everything he touched to be turned to gold. In a tem- 
ple the people showed him a wagon to which the yoke 
was fastened by a knotted cord, and they told him that 
whoever would untie it should become ruler of all Asia. 
Alexander tried to unfasten it as many others had done ; 
but when he found it was very difficult, he drew his 
sword and cut the string, and so it came off. 

Soon he reached the Issus River, near the northeast 
angle of the Mediterranean Sea, and found out that 
Darius himself was coming with a large army to fight 
him. This is just what Alexander wanted. 

What a splendid sight the Persian army made as it 
marched along ! First came the silver altar, bearing the 
sacred fire ; then came youths, one for each day in the 
year, in front of the chariot of the sun, drawn by white 
horses. On the chariot sat the king, wearing a fine pur- 
ple mantle, containing many precious stones. Around 
him on every side were his soldiers, many of them wear- 
ing robes glittering with gold and carrying silver-handled 
lances. 

Then they began to fight. The battle was sharp and 
Alexander was wounded ; but as usual he won the vic- 
tory. Darius soon saw that the Persians were beaten, 
so he jumped on a horse and hurried away to escape 
with his life, leaving behind his wife, his mother and 
children, as well as his purple mantle. But Alexander 
was not cruel to his fair prisoners, and Darius' own 
mother said she was treated better by her kingly captor 
than she had been by Darius himself. 

That night Alexander ate the supper which had been 



134 SCHOOL HISTORY 

prepared for Darius, and slept in Darius' tent. He and 
his plain Macedonian soldiers were surprised at the 
many fine things they had captured. There were 
dishes and pitchers and bath-tubs of solid gold, won- 
drously made. The odors of spices and myrrh sweet- 
ened the king's tent. Fine carpets and rugs were there 
in great abundance ; and, what pleased the soldiers 
greatly, they found a large pile of Persian money. 

The Greeks now entered Phoenicia, the land where 
stood the city of Tyre. You remember last year you 
learned how the merchants from Tyre sailed over all 
the seas trading with the different countries, carrying 
the goods from one place to another. In this way the 
people became very rich and proud and had built 
around the edge of their island-city a wall one hundred 
and fifty feet high, made out of large stones, accurately 
joined and tightly cemented. On the shore, a half mile 
away, stood the old city. They thought they would be 
forever safe behind the walls of their new city ; and well 
they might, for once Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, with 
a great army, had tried thirteen years to capture it and 
had failed. But Nebuchadnezzar was not an Alex- 
ander. 

The Tyrians did not wish the Greek army to enter 
their city, so they left all the houses on the shore in 
the old town and shut themselves behind the great 
'Walls on the island-city. Alexander had no fear that 
he would not be able to capture it, but how was he to 
get over the half mile of water which extended between 
the coast and the city ? 

He decided to build a road out through the water to 
the island. So he tore down the houses on the shore 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 135 

and brought down trees from Mt. Lebanon near by, and 
tumbled rocks, wood, dirt and all — a whole forest and 
a whole city — into the sea, making a path two hundred 
feet wide, reaching from the shore to the walls. The 
Tyrians tried to tear up the way, but the Greek sol- 
diers quickly repaired it every time it was torn down. 

But how will the Greeks break down the walls when 
they get to them ? Will they use cannon to break 
them to pieces, as we would ? No, indeed, they will 
not ; for in that day, and for almost two thousand years 
afterward, there were no cannon, and gunpowder was 
not known. 

They tried to dig holes under the sides of the wall so 
as to cause it to fall, but the Tyrians threw down stones 
and poured kettles of hot oil upon the men who were 
digging and drove them away. Then the soldiers built 
huge battering-rams with which to batter the walls to 
pieces. A battering-ram is a large pole, thicker and 
longer than the largest telegraph pole, the end of which 
is covered with a head of hard iron. The pole is hung 
on a chain in a frame, so it may be moved back and 
forth lengthwise, heavily battering against the solid wall. 
Day after day for seven long months they beat at the 
strong walls and hurled immense stones and sharp bars 
of iron at them with another machine, called a catapult, 
till at last they broke through a hole large enough for 
some of the soldiers to enter. Alexander was one of 
the first inside, and soon the city was captured. 

What do you think became of the people ? Well, 
some of them were killed, but most of them were sold 
as slaves, and some of them were cruelly crucified. 
Thus the city of Tyre completely lost the importance 



136 SCHOOL HISTORY 

which it had so long held as the queen city of the east- 
ern Mediterranean. After Tyre is destroyed, there is 
for fifty years or more no great city on the eastern 
Mediterranean coast. 

Alexander next went to Egypt, and the people there 
who were tired of being ruled by Persia gladly wel- 
comed him. He spent the winter there and started a 
city at the place where the Nile empties into the blue 
Mediterranean. He named this Alexandria, after him- 
self, just as we named our capital after Washington, our 
first president. He divided the city into three main 
parts, one for the Greeks, one for the Hebrews, and one 
for the Egyptians, but he wanted all nations of people to 
come there to live. I will tell you more of Alexandria 
by and by, but now I must finish about Alexander's 
great conquests. 

When spring came, Alexander again set out, for he 
had not yet come to the Persian capital. Eastward he 
went over rivers and hills, through green valleys, and 
then over hot burning deserts. King Darius, after run- 
ning away in the last battle, had by this time collected 
another large army, — larger than the one before. This 
time, besides the enormous army of soldiers, he had 
more than two hundred war chariots with sharp swords 
and scythe blades fastened to the end of the tongue, 
and to the ends of the axle. He expected to mow down 
Alexander's army as a farmer would cut his grass and 
wheat. 

Alexander came up with him near the town of Arbela, 
in the rich valley of the Tigris, and fought here his third 
and last great battle with him ; but like the others, 
Alexander won it. King Darius again escaped, but 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 137 

Alexander now entered the capitals of Babylon, Susa 
and Persepolis. Here he found the hoarded wealth of the 
king, and great it surely was, for it took five thousand 
camels and a whole host of mules to carry away the 
treasure. Some of it he sent back to Greece, and the rest 
he kept for his own use and to divide among his soldiers. 

He had now really gone as far as he at first intended, 
but, you see, he had not yet taken Darius. So allow- 
ing all his soldiers who cared to do so to go back 
home, where they would tell of the riches they had 
found and thus induce others to come to help him, and 
leaving men to take care of the captured cities, he 
again started after Darius. Many days he followed 
him. Sometimes he was almost up with him, but still 
Darius kept ahead. At last Darius' own men saw it 
was of no use to try longer to escape, so they tried to 
kill the king to keep him from being captured ; and 
when Alexander at last overtook him, he was dying. 
Sorry to see him treated so cruelly, Alexander ordered 
the body to be taken back to the capital, and there 
buried in the beautiful tomb of the Persian kings. 

Now that Darius was dead, Alexander called him- 
self king of Persia and began to dress and act some- 
thing like the Persian kings. His plain Macedonian 
soldiers did not like this, but Alexander thought by 
doing so, it would be the best way to unite the Persians 
with the Greeks, so that he might truly rule over both. 

Still Alexander went on. He fought many fierce, 
brave battles with tribes in Central Asia, and overcame 
them all. That he might easily hold all the country, 
wherever he went he built cities something like Alex- 
andria, and left in them some of his soldiers who no 



138 SCHOOL HISTORY 

longer cared to fight, or were worn out by the long 
marches. Many traders also who followed the army 
to sell their goods to the soldiers, saw that they could 
profitably remain to supply the people with what they 
needed. Some of the natives, too, were brought from 
the country and from little villages and placed in the 
cities. 

In this way more than seventy cities were built, 
and you may be sure these Greek cities grew to be 
very much like those at home. The people spoke the 
Greek language and had their gymnasia, Greek sports, 
theaters and temples. They remembered their Homer 
and taught others to know it, and in their theaters they 
gave the plays of yEschylus, which had so often de- 
lighted the Athenians when Pericles lived. Do you 
begin to see how Alexander made Persia like Greece ? 
And also how he was spreading over the old worn-out 
East a layer of rich soil of Greek beauty as farmers 
sometimes spread a fertilizer over their worn-out fields ? 

Do you think Alexander had forgotten his old teacher, 
Aristotle? No, indeed, he had not, for wherever he 
went he had many men to find out all they could about 
the people they met and the countries through which 
they passed, so they might send back this knowledge 
to Aristotle. He set many men to work also to gather 
all the different kinds of plants from mountain sides 
and woods and fields and deserts, and these he sent 
back to Aristotle, that he might study them. Alexander, 
too, furnished the great teacher of his boyhood all the 
money he needed in his work, and so made it possible 
for him to study and teach in Athens. Aristotle was 
one of the greatest men who ever lived, and by his 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 139 

study and writing people now know many things about 
Greece and the olden times which they never would 
have known had it not been for him. 

But Alexander was not always so good as you might 
think, for he loved to have his men gather at his royal 
tent to drink wine with him, and sometimes he would 
even get drunk. Once, when he had drunk too much 
wine, he became very angry at his best friend, Clitus, 
who, you remember, had saved his life at the battle 
of the Granicus River. Before Alexander thought 
what he was doing, he threw his spear at Clitus and 
killed him. He was very sorry for his act and shut 
himself in his tent and would not see any one for many 
days. You surely think this should have taught him 
to let wine alone, but I am sorry to say it did not. 

Alexander, still traveled eastward, coming at last to 
the Indus River, where a branch of the early Aryan 
people lived. His soldiers did not wish to go farther, 
so they begged him to return to Babylon, for it was 
now ten years since they had left Macedonia. 

Alexander still wished to make Persia and Greece 
more like each other in customs and life, so he married 
the beautiful daughter of Darius and urged his Greek 
soldiers to marry Persian women afto. Many did so, 
and they made a great wedding feast, which lasted 
five whole days. Thousands of Greeks and Persians 
were present to enjoy this feast — made rich with the 
wealth and luxury of Persia and beautiful with the art 
and culture of Greece. It was held in a great hail 
decorated in most expensive style. Elegant couches 
for those who dined to recline upon, costly Persian rugs, 
hangings of fine linen, tapestries of many colors inter- 



140 SCHOOL HISTORY 

woven with threads of gold, pillars overlaid with silver 
and gold, and precious jewels, tell us that this Alexander 
is quite different from the plain, simple, manly Mace- 
donian king and soldier who had crossed the Hellespont 
only ten years before. 

But in spite of his many successes, Alexander was 
not nearly so happy as he used to be when he was 
king of only little Macedon. He no longer had the 
fine health which had so often helped him to brave 
hardships, for he had become weakened by eating 
and drinking too much, and returning to Babylon, 
where he feasted much, it was not long until he be- 
came very sick. 

The doctors crowded around his bed and did their 
best to save his life, but they soon saw that he must 
die. When the soldiers found this out, they were wild 
with grief and all wanted to see their loved leader once 
again. Silently and sadly they passed by his bedside 
and looked on his dying face, which they had so often 
seen bright and full of joy. It was sad that Alexander 
should die so young, for he was only thirty-three, and 
had just begun his great work of spreading Greek 
culture over the then known world and of uniting the 
many different people whom he had conquered. 

Alexander had many faults, but the people loved him, 
for he really tried to do very much to help them. Both 
by war and by sowing broadcast the seeds of Greek 
life, he had well earned the title of Alexander the 
Great. 

When Alexander died, his body was embalmed, laid in 
a golden coffin and taken, as is generally believed, to the 
city of Alexandria, where a fine tomb was built for it. 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 141 

And this brings us back to the wonderful city founded 
but a few years before at the mouth of the Nile. 

Alexandria grew very rapidly, and soon became the 
most important city in the world. Since Tyre was 
destroyed, the traders of the Mediterranean Sea must 
find a new city as a center, and it was to take the place 
of Tyre that Alexandria was built. It had such a fine 
harbor that ships from all countries came there to trade. 
Athens sent ships to get the grain from the Nile valley ; 
camels brought ivory and lions' skins from southern 
Egypt; from Arabia and far-away India the caravans 
brought costly gems and spices ; ships came with loads 
of furs and fish from the Baltic Sea ; Spain sent its large 
amount of precious silver. As a spider sits at the center 
of its web catching food in its meshes from every direc- 
tion, so Alexandria sat as the mistress of the Mediter- 
ranean, drawing trade from every quarter east and west. 

Thus it was not long until Alexandria was doing the 
trading for most of the world and was even a greater 
city than Tyre had ever been. She was the halfway 
point between the rich and luxurious peoples living in 
the Indus and Tigro-Euphrates valleys in the Old East 
and the youthful peoples growing up on the western 
shores of the Mediterranean and on the western coast 
of Europe. I must briefly tell you something more about 
this greatest of all the cities founded by Alexander. 

The governor of Egypt, who was one of Alexander's 
own Greek generals, built for himself a fine marble 
palace in the center of the city. Most of the people 
spoke the Greek language and learned the Greek ways. 
Soon they had a theater for the Greek plays and a 
gymnasium for the games. Near his palace the governor 



142 SCHOOL HISTORY 

built a large library. He sent men to Athens and the 
other Greek cities to get copies of all their books. Others 
were sent to copy the clay bricks of Babylon. The Jews 
brought the Hebrew Bible which they loved so much, 
and it, too, was changed to Greek. 

As we found in studying Egypt and bookmaking last 
year, the books were written on a kind of paper which 
they called papyrus. This was made from the thin 
coats of a reed-like plant which grew in Egypt. After 
the paper was made, strips of it were cut just as wide as 
a book was to be, and then a number of wide strips were 
glued end to end, thus making a strip of paper from 
eight to fourteen inches wide and just as long as was 
desired, fifty or a hundred feet, or even sometimes much 
longer. The pages were written down the sheets. On 
each end of the paper a stick, usually with fine knobs, 
was fastened, and on one of these sticks the whole was 
rolled, somewhat as we roll a map. When one wanted 
to read the book, he unrolled it from one stick to the 
other as he read. Each of these rolls came to be called 
a volume, for that was the ancient word for a roll ; and 
you see we have kept the idea of books being rolls to 
this day, for we still call them volumes. So the work 
went on, and so eager was the governor to get a copy 
of every book for the library, it is said he even ordered 
persons to steal books in the various countries if they 
could not get them any other way. The library grew to 
be very large, and we are told that at one time it had 
more than seven hundred thousand volumes. How 
strange this library of papyrus rolls would have seemed 
to us ; but we should be glad all this was done, for, by 
gathering so much of the learning together in one place, 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 143 

and by changing much of the old writing into the Greek, 
it made it much easier for many scholars to learn it, 
and hand it down, to all after ages, even to our own 
time. 

The governor, too, built a large building, in which he 
gathered all the kinds of plants which could be found, and 
in another he placed a large collection of wild animals. 
Then he sent for the wisest men to study the books, 
the plants and the animals. From everywhere they 
came, — from Athens, from Babylon, from Jerusalem 
and from far-away Sicily and India. In order that they 
need not stay away if they were poor, he built large 
buildings in which they might live, and furnished them 
with board. It is said that at one time more than four- 
teen thousand people were there to study. What a fine 
school that must have been, in those olden days ! 

Thus you see that while many people in that far- 
away time were interested mostly in war and such 
things, yet some people were beginning to be great 
scholars, and gathered together the best that had been 
thought and said all over the world, and wrote it out 
in their own language. By this means they preserved 
learning and made it so that they and their people could 
better. understand it, and not only teach it to their chil- 
dren, but add a few new thoughts to it, and their children 
in turn to their children, in this way making knowledge 
like a river which grows continually wider and deeper 
by the streams which flow into it. It is by work like 
this that knowledge has grown " from more to more," 
as Tennyson says. 

Thus I hope you see that Alexander was not chiefly 
a rude warrior, selfishly overturning cities and countries, 



144 SCHOOL HISTORY 

but he was more like a missionary who carries new 
thought to a people and thus lifts them to a higher life. 
Athens was not to have all of its art, its Homer, its 
^Eschylus and its many other great things longer to 
itself, but they flowed out from Greece over Asia and 
Egypt, and some were left wherever Alexander's work 
extended. This out-pouring of Greece was much like 
the Nile River overflowing its banks and spreading out 
over the country, bringing moisture and fertile soil to 
every part of the valley. So Alexander's going out over 
the borders of little Greece caused the streams of beauty 
and truth, as sculpture and architecture and poetry and 
philosophy, which had become stagnant, to flow over 
and enrich the people of the old East. Thus Greece 
was able to pay back those old countries for the help 
they had given her, by giving her ideas and useful 
things, when she was a mere infant — just getting a 
start. Next year in the study of Rome we shall see 
Greek life and art carried west and spread over the 
western Mediterranean ; and as we study in the fifth 
and sixth grades, we shall see how it goes on to Western 
Europe, and in the seventh and eighth grades its influ- 
ence will be seen reaching out to every American home 
which has in it artistic mantle-pieces, or wall-paper, or 
linoleum, or beautiful patterns for chair or piano, or 
plate or picture. Thus the beautiful and true things 
which Greece worked out were not permitted to remain 
in that little country, but have been spread over much 
of the world to give it a taste for simple grace and 
artistic life. 



THE STORY OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 145 

References 

Wheeler: Alexander the Great ; Putnam's Sons, N.Y. 
Curteis : Rise of the Macedonian Empire ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Oman : A History of Greece ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 
Plutarch : Biography of Alexander the Great ; A. L. Burt, N.Y. 
Botsford : A History of Greece ; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Myers and Allen : Ancient History ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Morris : Historical Tales ; Greek ; Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. 
Guerber : Story of the Greeks ; American Book Co., Cincinnati. 
Church : Greek Life and Story ; Putnam's Sons, N.Y. 
Holm : The History of Greece ; 4 vols. ; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 
Study the biographies of Aristotle, Alexander the Great and 

Ptolemy I. 



FOURTH-GRADE WORK 

The aim of the work in the fourth grade is to present the geog- 
raphy of Italy and then the life of Rome at three different periods 
of her growth : — 

i. In her Infancy. — Here the pupil should see the favorable 
position of the city for defense and for acquiring wealth ; and should 
be led to see the everyday life as it grew up on the small farms around 
the city, as well as in the city life itself. He should be so guided 
by the teacher that he will see and feel the problems which grew up 
between the plebeians and patricians, and try to devise plans him- 
self for their settlement. Then, as Rome grows strong, he must see 
her become the champion of the people on the plains, and engage in 
battle with the mountainous people around, finally conquering them, 
building roads to them, and teaching them Roman manners, laws 
and customs. 

2. In her Strong Manhood. — Here the pupil should see the 
struggle of Rome against her most powerful neighbor and enemy, 
Carthage, as well as something of why it was important to civiliza- 
tion that Rome should conquer in the conflict, rather than Carthage. 

3. In her Old Age. — Here the pupil should see Rome extend her 
power all around the Mediterranean, giving to the world peace, law 
and order, and making unconsciously a highway both for Greek cul- 
ture and for Christianity to spread to the West. But he should see 
how Rome lost her moral strength, grew corrupt, luxurious and 
selfish, and was, therefore, easily overturned by the Teutons, who 
broke through the mountain barriers in the north. 



146 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY 

If you will take another glance at the map of Europe, 
you will see that not very far west of Greece, extending 
seven hundred miles down into the Mediterranean Sea, 
is a slender peninsula which looks very much like a 
great boot. It seems to have its back turned toward the 
back of Greece and is drawn up to kick, as if it were a 
ball, the little island which you see near it. This penin- 
sula is Italy, and the island is Sicily, but it is mostly of 
the peninsula that we wish first to learn. 

Italy extends far out into the sea, and seems to be 
almost in the center of it. Westward, at.no very great 
distance, lies the peninsula of Spain. Eastward, and 
scarcely farther away than Spain, are Egypt and the 
lands of the Phoenicians and of the Jews. Greece is 
so near, that standing on the eastern shore of Italy on 
a bright, clear day, one can see the dim outlines of its 
western coast ; and Africa is only a few hours sail to the 
south. Any one of these countries can be reached 
easily and quickly from Italy. In fact, Italy is the 
central country of the Mediterranean Sea. 

Italy differs greatly from Greece in shape. Greece is 
made up of a large peninsula, which in turn consists of 
many smaller ones. On a map it looks somewhat like 
a maple leaf, being cut up into many narrow, sharp 
points, or like a palm to which are attached the stubby 
fingers. 

147 



148 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Italy is not so. It is of an average width of about 
one hundred miles at all places except in the north, and 
has only a few sharp projections. Since the whole 
peninsula is shaped like a boot, one of the projections 
may be called the toe ; another looks like a rather 
high heel ; the third one, on its back, if it were only 
lower down, would look very much like a spur on the 
heel. 

You may think of Italy in general as being about 
once the width, twice the length, and twice the extent of 
Florida. As I have already told you, scarcely any part 
of it is more than a hundred miles wide, and it is only 
six or seven times as long as wide. At its northern end, 
where it spreads out into the high top of the boot, and 
is really no longer a peninsula, it becomes about three 
times as wide as before. Its northern boundary is 
formed by the high and rugged Alps, which extend in a 
kind of half-circle from the Mediterranean to the Adri- 
atic Sea, thus, like a mighty wall, shutting Italy off to 
a great extent from the rest of the continent. Through 
these mountains there are very few passes, and even 
these are very rugged and difficult to cross, for they are 
filled with deep snows and large glaciers. Italy thus 
formed in ancient times a kind of out-of-the-way place, 
in which her greatest city, Rome, developed without 
much interference from the barbarians of the North. 

Most of this wider part of Italy just south of the 
Alps (now called the Plain of Lombardy) forms a level 
expanse about as large as Indiana. It is the richest 
part of all Italy. The melting snows of the Alps start 
many streams, which flow down the mountain sides and 
unite to form the River Po, which flows eastward 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY 149 

through the plains and empties into the Adriatic Sea. 
The little streams that come tumbling down the moun 1 
tain side are very swift and carry down a large amount 
of rich soil. This soil, being washed down into the plain 
below and spread out over the valley, makes the Po 
valley very productive. 

If we should go there to-day, we should find great 
fields of waving grain and large groves of mulberry 
trees. On the Adriatic, north of the mouth of the Po, 
the interesting city of Venice now stands on more than 
a hundred little islands, and the gondolas sail on its 
streets of water, arched over by hundreds of bridges. 
But long ago, when Rome was beginning to rise, there 
was no Venice, and on the plain there were but few 
fields of grain and groves of mulberry trees.. Here, 
where now all is so beautiful, were then only large, 
unhealthy marshes and many low sandy islands, — the 
homes of a few scattered fishermen. Through these 
islands and swamps the dirty waters of the Po found 
their way slowly to the sea in many shallow mouths. 
Thus, because of the swamps and the absence of good 
harbors, northern Italy did not have great cities grow 
up in it in early times. 

On the south side of the northern plain, beginning 
where the Alps meet the Mediterranean, starts another 
great chain of mountains. At first they so closely 
follow the shore that a road can barely creep between 
the foothills and the sea. These mountains run at 
first eastward till they almost cross the peninsula, and 
then, bending southward, continue throughout the 
length of Italy, making a backbone for the country. 
Down into the toe of the boot they extend, and, at last, 



150 SCHOOL HISTORY 

reaching the sea, jump over the strait into the island of 
Sicily. These are the Apennines. They do not have 
the many pointed peaks, nor are they so high, as the 
rugged and snowy Alps. Their sides, even to the very 
top, are covered with fine forests of oak, elm, pine and 
chestnut, thus giving plenty of timber for building ships. 
Rome found these forests of great value when she came 
to build a navy with which to fight the Carthaginians on 
the sea. 

You must thus imagine Italy as having had a belt 
through its center from north to south, bristling with 
mountain chains and peaks, through which, however, 
were many easy passes, and on both sides of which were 
hilly plains, sloping down to the sea. Between the 
chains, among the peaks, and along the mountain sides, 
lay many valleys in which herds of long-horned cattle 
and large flocks of sheep, herded by men who loved a 
rough mountain life, found excellent pastures. 

The eastern slope of Italy is short and steep, and so 
rugged that it is only fitted for people who can live on 
the products of a shepherd's life. There are few harbors 
on the coast, and there is little to invite people who are 
seeking homes. For this reason, as I have already said, 
it was the back of Italy which was turned toward Greece 
and the east. On the west side of the mountains the 
slope is gentler, and contains several quite large fertile 
plains where grains may be raised; and in the south, 
near the toe, the climate is so mild that tropical fruits, 
such as the olive, the orange and the fig, are found in 
great abundance. Grape vines grow in great numbers, 
and climbing to the very tops of the trees, produce large 
quantities of fruit. The western coast contains several 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY 151 

good harbors. Thus the face of Italy may be said to be 
turned toward Spain and the west. 

Since the peninsula is so narrow and the distance 
from the Apennines to the sea is not great, you must 
not expect to find long, deep rivers, none even so large 
as the Po. Indeed they are very much like those of 
Greece, — short, rapid, and overflowing during the rains 
or at the time when the hot sun melts the snow on the 
mountain tops, and only small and dried up -at other 
times. There is but one river on which even a boat of 
considerable size can sail. This is the Tiber, which rises 
in the Apennines where they bend south into the penin- 
sula, and then flows south about one hundred eighty- 
five miles, emptying through a small plain into the 
Mediterranean about halfway down the peninsula. It 
will carry boats over about fifty miles of its lower 
course. 

The plain through which it flows is the largest one on 
this slope and is called Latium. It was on the banks 
of the Tiber and in this plain that the most interesting 
life of Italy developed ; for here, on a low group of 
hills, fifteen miles from the mouth of the Tiber, grew up 
Rome, — the mighty center of the ancient world. 
Although Rome began with rude huts for homes and 
with a mud wall, the people learned to make use of the 
things around them until this city grew to be wealthy, 
and finally master of all Italy, and then of every country 
touching the Mediterranean. 

Out over a plain not larger than an average western 
county, Rome slowly spread, during a period of three 
hundred years, learning all the time how to govern the 
various peoples who lived in the lowlands. Having 



152 SCHOOL HISTORY 

learned this lesson of how to govern herself, she spent 
the next two hundred years in conquering the high- 
landers — the rude people who lived up in the moun- 
tain valleys — and teaching them the lessons of law and 
order. 

Near the seashore, throughout the plain of Latium, 
were many marshes much like those near the mouth of 
the Po. These in the hot Italian sun became full of 
malaria, and the people who braved the danger of fever 
had to build great drains before the country became 
healthy. The waters of ''Yellow Tiber," filled with 
mud swept down from the mountain side, could not be 
used for drinking and bathing, so the people constructed 
waterways — aqueducts, they called them — from the 
pure mountain springs miles away, to bring water to the 
city. This taught them how to build arches in tunneling 
the mountains and bridging the rivers and valleys. 

The mountains were filled with white limestone, which, 
if placed in the air, became hard and took on beautiful 
tints. This they used for building their temples and 
other fine buildings, for near Rome there was no marble 
as there was near Athens. From the old volcanoes, 
too, they obtained great quantities of lava, which they 
used in building roads so well that some of them 
remain at the present day. 

But all this required hundreds of years of work, 
and the people who patiently did these things, in thus 
learning to rule nature, learned at the same time to 
rule men. Rome's last great work in history was to 
overcome all the peoples around the Mediterranean 
Sea, and to teach them her great lessons of law and 
order. This she had no great trouble in doing, for be- 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY 153 

ing in the very center of the Mediterranean, and having 
wonderful power for governing people, she had but to 
reach her mighty arms to the east and the west and bind 
them all together at the one common center — Rome — 
through the great lessons of industry and law which 
she taught so well to those whom she overcame, that 
they were never forgotten. 

References 

How and Leigh : History of Rome, chap, i ; Longmans, Green 

& Co., N.Y. 
Myers and Allen : Ancient History ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Duruy : History of Rome, chap, i; Estes & Co., Boston. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; 

Ginn & Co., Boston. 



ROME IN HER INFANCY 

While we were watching Greece win her freedom on 
the fields of Marathon and Plataea, and while we followed 
Alexander into the far East, where he carried Grecian 
arms and culture, and while the Egyptians at Alexan- 
dria were taking up Grecian thought and carrying it 
back to the land of the Nile, there was growing up on 
the banks of the Tiber a city which became, because of 
what it did, the greatest city of the world. 

It was, perhaps, a very fortunate thing for Rome that 
these other great peoples had affairs of their own, so 
that she was left undisturbed to grow slowly, as all 
great and lasting nations must grow. 

But before we go on to study about Rome, let us 
recall to mind the most important facts about the country 
surrounding Rome. . Only two or three days' travel 
by trireme westward from the beautiful island-fringed 
Greece, and almost in the very middle of the blue Med- 
iterranean, is where the people lived whom we are to 
study about this year. We might, as I have already 
told you, call the country the " Boot Country," for it 
resembles a great boot, looking as if it were hung out 
into the water, and fastened by the upper, or northern, 
end. Look at the map and see what a long coast line this 
gives Italy, and how friend and foe alike could reach 
her by water. This fact may lead Rome to become a 
trading people, and it may finally lead her to go out to 

iS4 



ROME IN HER INFANCY 1 55 

the peoples around the Mediterranean to conquer and 
to rule them. You notice that Italy is not cut to pieces 
as is Greece by arms of the sea extending far into the 
land, nor are there numerous islands scattered around 
her coasts ; nor do her mountains, which have good 
passes, serve to divide the country into small sections, 
so much as do those of Greece. Thus, because the 
country is comparatively united, the people tend to 
become more united. 

The eastern coast has no good harbors, and people 
would seldom enter to trade from that side; but the 
western coast has several good harbors and fertile plains, 
and it is from this side that Italy invites people to enter. 

We shall sail into the best harbor along the coast. 
It is the harbor of the Tiber, which leads us into a beau- 
tiful plain, where the sky is bluer and the climate pleas- 
anter than even in Greece, if such a thing were possible. 

Overlooking this beautiful plain, about fifteen miles 
up the river Tiber, are the hills upon which Rome was 
built. In early times, the people who lived in Rome 
went out in the daytime and tilled the plain, and at 
night returned to Rome in order that they might be 
protected. From this it would seem that there were 
enemies near, would it not ? Do you think they were 
wise in choosing such a place for their city ? Indeed 
it was a very wise choice, because from the hills they 
could overlook their farms, see enemies coming, and 
protect themselves ; and the river too was at hand, upon 
which they could sail thirty miles or so above Rome and 
get the products, and then float them out to sea, and 
work up a good trade with the people living on the 
Mediterranean. 



156 SCHOOL HISTORY 

At first in Rome all land and trade and wealth were 
owned by the rich people alone, but in time the poor 
people came to have little farms of their own, which 
they lived upon and cultivated. I say little farms, 
but you will be surprised when you know just how 
small they were. Could you imagine any one with a 
family living upon a farm of only three or four acres, or 
about three times the size of the usual school square ? 
Well, the father of the little Roman boy Marius lived 
on just such a farm. It lay favorably on a gently slop- 
ing hillside facing the east, for there the early sun shone 
upon it. It had a sandy soil which was easily drained, 
and it was surrounded by a hedge of trees. 

The little farm had its vineyard, and Marius enjoyed 
going about it with his father, trimming branches here 
and there, for he knew that the wine of the grape made 
a large part of their living. He watched the olive 
orchard as it grew, and in the proper season helped his 
father to press the oil from the olive. The Romans 
were very fond of olives, and the oil served them as 
butter. 

Marius, of course, could merely help in the things that 
I have mentioned, but there was one thing that he and 
his little brother could do alone, and that was to tend 
the garden patch, which, to be sure, was not very large, 
but sufficient, if well tended, for the father, mother and 
four children, — for Marius had two sisters and a brother 
also. Do you think a family of six could have many 
luxuries, making a living on a four-acre farm ? 

While the father plowed the ground with a rude 
plow made from a forked sapling, and the mother and 
sisters looked after the broods of chickens and geese, 



ROME IN HER INFANCY 1 57 

Marius and his brother carefully tended the patches 
of lettuce, turnips, onions, cabbage, carrots and many 
other things which you see nowadays growing in the 
gardens in the United States. Marius was not yet old 
enough to follow the plow, but he had helped his father 
select the tree from which the plow was made, and 
watched his father make it, so I am sure he could tell 
you just how it was made. It was very simple, and yet 
it seems a little strange to us who never think of mak- 
ing our own plows. But the early Roman farmers, 
having no manufactories, had to make all their plows by 
hand; and no matter how poor they were, they could 
have as many plows as they wished, for all they had to 
do was to hunt a branched sapling, and sharpen the 
branch into a long point. This served as a share, to 
run in the ground, and about midway of the longest 
part a handle was fastened ; to this longer part was 
hitched an ox to draw it. Do you think these plows 
were as good as those made in our own manufactories 
of to-day ? No, they were nothing but sharpened wooden 
sticks, and besides being very poor for turning the soil, 
they were hard to sharpen and soon wore dull again. 

The soil for the wheat, rye and millet was plowed 
with this plow, and when the grain was ripe, it was 
threshed by walking oxen over it ; the chaff was sepa- 
rated from the grain by flinging it into the air and 
letting the wind blow it away. After grinding the 
grain between two stones, arranged much as our coffee 
mills are, it was mixed with water and was then ready 
to eat. We should hardly think we could eat it without 
baking, but the Romans did not learn to bake their bread 
until a good many years after Rome was settled. 



158 SCHOOL HISTORY 

The principal buildings on the farm were Marius' 
home, and, a little apart from it, the sheds, granaries 
and coops which surrounded the open court, and in 
which the hay, grain, wine, oil and broods were stored 
and kept. Bees had a home here, too. The Romans 
had no sugar, so Marius ate honey in the place of sugar. 

It would not do to forget the flock of sheep which 
Marius helped drive down to the river and wash off, after 
which he watched his father cut the great fleece, which 
the mother and sisters wove by hand into clothing. 

This was the time that Marius most enjoyed, for it 
was then that his father told him many things that his 
father had told to him. The story that Marius loved 
best was how Rome, the city on the hills a short dis- 
tance away, was thought to have been founded. I 
must first tell you that nowadays scholars know that 
the Romans just imagined some of the things they told 
about early Rome ; and while we do not believe every 
story they told, they did, and I will tell you the story of 
the founding of Rome just as Marius used to hear it 
from his father. 

A wicked king, named Amulius, ruled in Alba Longa, 
a city a little southeast of where Rome was afterward 
built. He had robbed his elder brother of the king- 
dom and killed his brother's sons. But there was a 
daughter named Rhea Silvia left, and fearing lest she 
should marry and have sons, who would take back the 
kingdom of her father, he made her priestess of Vesta. 
A Vestal virgin or priestess of Vesta was a maiden 
who watched and kept the sacred fire always burning 
in the temple of Vesta. You see, the Romans, as well 
as the Egyptians, Phoenicians and other people we 



ROME IN HER INFANCY 1 59 

have studied, used fire in their worship. These Vestal 
maidens were not allowed to marry, but the god Mars 
married Rhea Silvia, and she gave birth to twins, Romu- 
lus and Remus. When Amulius heard this, he ordered 
the babes to be thrown into the Tiber, and they floated 
down the stream until they were washed ashore near the 
place where Rome was afterward built. Here they were 
nursed by a wolf, and afterward were found and brought 
up by a shepherd. When they had grown up, they were 
made known to their grandfather, whom they restored 
to the throne by slaying the wicked Amulius. They 
then determined to build a city on the Tiber, near where 
they had been saved. 

You see, the wild life they had lived made them 
fierce and strong, so they quarreled about whose city it 
should be, and Remus was killed in the quarrel. Then 
Romulus built the city, and called it Rome after his 
own name. He was its first king, and he made his 
city great in war. He selected old men called senators 
to advise and help him govern, and these made up the 
senate ; only the sons of these first men, and then their 
sons, and so on down, could become senators and hold 
other offices in the state, and you will find later that 
this brought on a great deal of trouble. 

After Romulus had reigned thirty-seven years, he 
was taken up to heaven by his father Mars, and the 
Romans worshiped him as a god. 

As was said, Romulus made his city great in war. 
Now fighting makes people fierce and rough, so when 
wise and good Numa became the second King of Rome, 
he thought his people ought to be made peace-loving 
and taught lessons of religion ; for this reason he turned 



160 SCHOOL HISTORY 

their attention to the worship of the gods rather than 
to war. 

Whenever there was war, the gates of the temple of 
Janus were open, so that the people could go in and 
pray. Janus, I must tell you, was the god of Beginnings, 
and I am sure you can guess where we got our name for 
January. He had a double face, and thus could look 
backward or forward ; but in Numa's reign he was no 
longer seen, for daring the thirty-nine years of Numa's 
rule Rome was without war, and moved along in perfect 
happiness. 

Numa also appointed priests, who were to dance and 
sing through the street in a procession once a year, carry- 
ing the twelve sacred shields. During a famine in Rome 
the god Mars is said to have dropped a shield from 
heaven as a sign of protection to Rome. Numa then 
had eleven others made, which looked exactly like this 
one, so that if any one attempted to steal or destroy 
the sacred shield, he could not tell it from the others. 

Because Numa was so wise and good, and taught the 
people how to worship the gods, they believed he 
talked with a goddess, Egeria, who told him what was 
best for his people and how they might please the 
gods. Egeria led him through the sacred groves, told 
him how to consult the gods by the lightning and the 
flight of birds ; and so much did she come to love him, 
that when he died Egeria melted away in tears into a 
fountain. 

There were five other kings, the last being Tarquin 
the Proud, who ruled very harshly ; he was a warrior and 
made Rome more powerful among the surrounding 
people, but at last the Romans could endure him no 



ROME IN HER INFANCY l6l 

longer, so they rose against him, and drove him and 
his family out. They then elected, to serve for a year 
at a time, in place of the king, two men, called consuls. 
The consuls were to preside over the senate, and lead 
the army in battle. If in war the state was in great 
danger and the consuls were likely to be defeated, they 
could elect a dictator who could rule Rome without 
asking consuls, senate or anybody else, but who could 
serve no longer than six months. When King Tarquin 
was driven out, he went to Porsena, the king of the 
country north of Rome, and persuaded him to lead an 
army against Rome, and place him — Tarquin — again 
on the throne. The news soon reached Rome that 
the enemy had captured Janiculum, a hill just across the 
Tiber from the city. A bridge had been built by the 
Romans from Rome to this hill, and so they feared that 
Porsena with his army would soon cross and take their 
city. Horatius, with two brave companions, crossed 
the bridge to the Janiculum side, and forced the enemy 
back until the people in Rome could cut down the 
bridge behind the brave boys. As the bridge tottered 
and was about to fall, Horatius' companions rushed 
back and reached Rome just as it fell ; but brave 
Horatius stood until it went down, with thirty thousand 
foes before him and the great river behind. He then 
turned and said : — 

" Oh, Tiber ! Father Tiber, 
To whom the Romans pray, 
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, 
Take thou in charge this day," 

and then he plunged headlong into the stream. The 
enemy on one side, and his friends on the other, were 



1 62 SCHOOL HISTORY 

silent with awe at such great bravery ; and when he 

reached the shore, he was received with great rejoicing, 

and 

" They gave him of the corn-land, 

That was of public right, 

As much as two strong oxen 

Could plow from morn till night ; 

And they made a molten image. 

And set it up on high, 

And there it stands unto this day, 

To witness if I lie." 

Rome had many such brave men. Do you think such 
people were likely to be conquered ? These stories the 
Romans believed and loved to tell, and I am glad they 
have come down to us, too. As I told you, they contain 
truth and fable and fancy, all mixed together, but the 
Romans believed them so firmly that they were influ- 
enced by them almost as much as if they had been en- 
tirely true. They made the Romans a brave, obedient, 
patriotic, people, — in fact, I know of none who were 
ever more so. 

At first Rome was only a few houses upon a hill, near 
the river ; it grew in numbers, because men came to live 
within its mud walls, to be safe from their enemies and 
to trade ; and as it grew in numbers it grew in power, 
until the mud wall, which at first surrounded only one 
hill, was changed to a stone wall surrounding six others 
lying near ; and thus Rome became known as the City 
of Seven Hills. 

Some of the men were merchants and went up and 
down the Tiber River in their boats, but the greater part 
of the people at this early time were farmers, who tilled 
the land which lay about the city, and from which their 



ROME IN HER INFANCY 1 63 

principal supply of food came. When you think of 
Rome, therefore, in early times, you must always under- 
stand it meant both the city and the land around it. 

It was on one of these farms close to Rome, as I told 
you, that Marius lived. He not only hears these stories 
from his father, but he and his little neighbor Cato 
often talk about them. Only yesterday Cato told 
Marius that his oldest brother was one of the priests 
who carried the sacred shields, and that next year his 
sister would be eight years old and was to become a 
Vestal virgin, and that then he would hardly ever see 
her. Marius wondered why one of his sisters had 
never been a priestess of Vesta, for he thought it 
must be very delightful to be dressed in white robes 
and snowy linen in the great temple and keep the fire 
burning upon the altar, carry the sacred water from 
the fountain of Egeria and thus to serve the sacred 
goddess ; he often hoped, too, when he became a man 
that he might be one of the priests. Other things 
about him often brought questions to his mind and 
longings to his little heart. The farm of Cato's father 
was much larger than their own, and Cato and his 
father had several slaves to do their work. One of the 
slaves often told Cato many stories, and taught him to 
write on a waxen tablet with a stilus ; and thus he was 
being educated, and Marius was not. Cato's father 
sometimes took him to the senate, where he saw the 
senators in their white woolen togas, or cloaks with 
purple hems. Marius had been to Rome with his father 
and had been in the busy market place, or forum, a 
number of tiutes ; he had seen and worshiped in the 
temple of Mars, for Mars was the god who kept off sick- 



1 64 SCHOOL HISTORY 

ness from the cattle and sheep and kept the grain from 
blight and disease ; he had seen the temple of Minerva, 
and prayed to her often, for she was the goddess who 
gave wisdom to all ; but Marius had never visited the 
senate, and he wondered why his father had not taken 
him there, too. 

That night he asked his father why he did not have 
slaves as Cato's father had, and if he might, when he was 
a man, go to Rome and be one of the priests, — for 
Cato's elder brother was one, — and if he would take 
him to visit the senate. His father then told him that 
when Romulus chose the senators, there were only a 
few families in Rome, and that the senators were the 
heads of these old families. But as Rome grew, many 
new people came there to live and trade who had no 
place in the old families, and so had no share in the 
government. But that was not all : these old families, or 
patricians, as they were called, thought that because they 
were older they were better, and so looked down upon 
those who came later. " They have done this for years," 
said his father, " and still they expect us to fight when 
the rough plunderers come down from the mountain 
regions in search of booty, drive away our flocks and 
herds, take our grain, and burn and ruin our farms ; 
and yet for all this fighting we receive no pay. The 
land we get by war the patricians alone use for pastur- 
ing their sheep and cattle ; that is why our neighbor 
has wealth and luxury and a large farm, and slaves to 
do the work upon it. 

" Only a few years ago," he continued, " the plebeians 
were treated so badly that they marched out of Rome 
in a body, to the Sacred Mount not far from Rome, 



ROME IN HER INFANCY 1 65 

where they thought they would make a city for them- 
selves and let Rome fight her own battles ; but the 
patricians promised, if they would come back, that the 
plebeians might have officers, called tribunes, to protect 
them from wrong. These tribunes left the doors of 
their houses open day and night, so that any who sought 
refuge might find it in their homes ; and the patrician 
senate agreed, also, that the tribunes might stand at the 
door of the senate and forbid the passage of any law 
which would oppress the poor people. We are still 
struggling for our rights, my boy, and I hope by the 
time you are a man things will be so that you may be 
a priest, but now only the patricians can be selected ; 
and now you know also why you have never visited 
the senate." 

The father told Marius all this, but he did not tell 
him what would happen if the mountaineers should 
come down upon them and destroy their crops, and 
attack the valley farmers and then Rome. But Marius 
was soon to know. Only the next week, not long after 
harvest, messengers were sent by the Roman consuls 
out among the Roman farmers to summon to Rome all 
men who were able to fight. One of the consuls then 
led them to battle against the people who lived in the 
surrounding mountains, but not till the army, which 
had gathered at Rome, went to the temple of Mars 
and offered sacrifices and asked the help of the god 
whom they thought went always before them in battle. 
Marius' father offered wheat to Mars for the protec- 
tion of the cattle, fields and flocks, and a measure of 
barley to Vesta for the safe-keeping of his wife and chil- 
dren, and departed for the war. He was gone several 



1 66 SCHOOL HISTORY 

months, and in spite of the fact that Marius and the 
rest of the family worked faithfully on the little farm, 
offered sacrifices each day on the hearth-stone to Vesta 
and Mars, to protect their father, their home and their 
crops, when the father returned his farm had been over- 
run and plundered by the rude shepherds and moun- 
taineers who swept down from the upland hollows, 
buildings were destroyed, fields laid waste, and the little 
herd of sheep and goats driven away. But the father, 
who had fought so bravely in the war, struggled yet 
more bravely to support his family and save his little 
farm. In order that the family might have food and 
clothing when winter came, he was compelled to bor- 
row money from a wealthy patrician ; for as I told 
you, he received no pay for serving in the army, and 
since his crops and stock had been stolen, he must 
borrow money or see suffering and disease come to his 
wife and children. This threw him in debt, and his little 
farm did not grow enough for him ever to repay it. Do 
you begin to see how impossible it was, with wars and 
robbers and little farms, for the early Roman plebeians 
to keep free from debt ? Well, as time went on, what 
do you suppose happened to Marius' father ? By so 
much service in the army, and by frequent destruction 
of his crops, all his struggles, and the help of his noble 
little son, were not sufficient to enable him to pay the 
patrician from whom he had borrowed the money. 
His farm was at first taken from him, and finally the 
father himself thrown into prison. In those olden times 
each patrician house had its own prison in which to 
punish the poor people who could not pay their debts. 
Another hardship for the plebeian arose from his ig- 



ROME IN HER INFANCY 1 67 

norance of the law. What would you think if parents 
or teachers never told you plainly and clearly what was 
the proper thing to do, and yet punished you if you did 
not do it ? You would of course think that very wrong. 
Well, you will sympathize with the plebeians of early 
Rome then, for this is the way the patricians treated 
them. The patricians had teachers and had been 
taught the laws when they were children, but they had 
never allowed the plebeians to know what the laws 
were, because by keeping the plebeians ignorant, the 
patricians could punish them for anything they wished, 
or take their property from them and say it was the 
law. But the plebs kept struggling to work out some 
way to know the law ; for, they said, " How can we 
obey the law unless we know what it is ? " 

After a struggle of ten years, ten men were appointed 
to write down the laws of Rome. Before this the laws 
had been told by father to son. Do you suppose when 
the laws were written they were written on paper and 
printed in newspapers ? Not at all ; for there was then 
in Rome neither writing-paper, nor newspapers, nor 
scarcely any books. These laws were placed in the 
Forum, where every man and boy went very often to 
trade and attend to other things, and thus could learn 
them. They were written on twelve bronze tablets, 
and were called " The Twelve Tablets of the Law." It 
was a very great help to the plebeians to get these laws 
all plainly written out. Some of these laws were very 
similar to those we have to-day, but one like this we 
should think very strange : a man had control over his 
wife and sons and daughters (until they were married), 
and could sell them if he chose. 



1 68 SCHOOL HISTORY 

The struggle between the patricians and the plebeians 
lasted about four hundred years from the founding of 
Rome, until step by step the plebs were victorious, and 
stood equal in every way with the patricians. They 
could be senators, consuls, or priests, and finally little 
plebeian girls could become Vestal virgins as well as 
patrician. So, while I do not think Marius ever got to 
be a priest, he probably lived to see his son one. 

Often while this struggle was going on within Rome 
herself, there were other wars, as I have been "telling 
you, with the ^Equians, Volscians, Etruscans, Samnites, 
and other mountain tribes, living north, east and south, 
but Rome was conqueror over all ; for in the long 
struggle among themselves they had learned obedience, 
self-control and courage, and by learning to rule them- 
selves had learned to rule others. 

As we go on with our work I will tell you about these 
different wars, — first, about the Dictator, Cincinnatus, 
and then how bravely the Romans defended the citadel 
when the fair-haired Gauls came from the North against 
them, and how the Samnites fought and were overcome, 
and how, after holding out for some time, the Greek 
cities along the southern coast were taken, and their 
Grecian leader Pyrrhus, with his elephants, driven away. 
But I must now tell you a little about how Rome gov- 
erned this great " Boot Country," which she had gained 
through these wars. I have briefly told you how, when 
she conquered a people, say the Samnites, she would 
take part of the land and send some of the citizens of 
Rome to live upon it, and form a little state among the 
people, which became like Rome. The wild unculti- 
vated people living around these " little Romes," so to 



ROME IN HER INFANCY 169 

speak, were greatly influenced by the citizens from Rome, 
and gradually adopted their language, customs and 
institutions, until all Italy gradually became like Rome. 
Rome made it easy to govern these conquered people 
in another way. She built great roads. Let us see 
how these were made : First it was decided where the 
road should run — over the plains, through the hollows 
and over the hills. Then the breadth, which was 
enough for four horses abreast, was laid out by cutting 
wide trenches. In digging the trenches, earth was 
thrown out until solid ground was reached, so that the 
foundation would be firm ; then there was placed in the 
trench a layer of small stones; next, on top of this, 
broken stones cemented with lime ; then, as a third 
layer, a mixture of lime, clay and beaten fragments of 
brick and pottery ; and finally, as a fourth and last layer, 
a mixture of pounded gravel and lime, or a pavement of 
hard flat stones. 

These roads were built in all directions to different 
parts of Italy, from Rome, until they looked like a great 
spider web, with Rome as a spider in the center, catch- 
ing everything and drawing it into its power. When 
Rome conquered a new country, the roads were always 
extended into it. You see, by means of these high- 
ways Rome could send soldiers quickly where they were 
needed, for the roads were never out of order ; and 
notwithstanding she had no newspapers, and of course 
no railroads, it is astonishing how quickly messages or 
troops could be sent from one end of the country to the 
other. 

Thus you have seen how the town of Rome, starting 
as a little village of mud huts on the Tiber, gradually 



I/O SCHOOL HISTORY 

spread over the Seven Hills and along the river banks 
and out over the plain, growing richer and stronger all 
the time, and by her struggles at home between plebeians 
and patricians, learned lessons of courage, patience and 
perseverance. After this, Rome, having learned these 
lessons, was able to go out and conquer all the hill and 
mountain peoples and teach them to obey her. When 
Rome had done all this, she was strong enough to con- 
quer the greatest enemy she ever had. This was Car- 
thage ; and we shall soon see how she did it, and as a 
result became master of the whole Mediterranean Sea. 

References 

Ihne : Early Rome ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

Harding : The City of the Seven Hills; Scott-Foresman Co., Chi- 
cago. 

Guerber : The Story of the Romans ; American Bk. Co., Cincinnati. 

Morris : Historical Tales (Roman) ; Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia. 

Preston and Dodge : The Private Life of the Romans ; H. B. San- 
born, Boston. 

Ramsay and Lanciani : Manual of Roman Antiquities ; Scribners 
Sons, N.Y. 

Myers and Allen : Ancient History ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 

How and Leigh : A History of Rome to the Death of Caesar ; Long- 
mans, Green & Co., N.Y. 

Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 
& Co., Boston. 

Study the biographies of Cincinnatus and Coriolanus in contrast, 
with a view to leading the pupils to see some of the true 
qualities of patriotism. 



THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND 
CARTHAGE 

We have now seen the little city of Rome, beginning 
as a few mud huts on a single hill, increase in size and 
power till it came to rule the whole peninsula of Italy. 
As Rome's power grew southward she met another great 
city, on the southern coast of the Mediterranean, — a 
city so strong and so rich that the wealthy traders in 
Rome, the Roman senate, and even the plain farmers 
in the country regions throughout Italy, grew jealous of 
it and spent much of the time for more than a hundred 
years (264 B.C.- 146 B.C.) in conquering and destroying- 
it. I must now tell you how this city was founded, how 
it grew rich, and how it fought against Rome for its 
very life. 

You remember in the second grade we studied about 
King Hiram's country, the country of the Phoenicians? 
Many times we saw those brave sailors push out from 
their rocky and mountainous shore and start out on their 
ships. All the time since we first saw them, down to 
the time when they began to fight with Rome — fully 
five hundred years — the Phoenicians have been coloniz- 
ing and planting trading-posts wherever they have gone. 
A long time ago, about a hundred years before Rome 
was founded, they established a little trading-post on the 
northern coast of Africa, far away from their own home 

171 



172 SCHOOL HISTORY 

country ; and this little town grew rapidly till it came to 
be as large a city as Rome itself. It is now, 264 years 
before Christ was born, the largest Phoenician city in 
the world. Since Tyre was destroyed, as you remember, 
by Alexander the Great, 332 years before Christ, this 
new city has become the most important Phoenician city, 
and you would be really right in calling it New Tyre. 
So now let us take a look at New Tyre, or Carthage, 
as it was called, and see why it grew to be so large. 

Carthage was on the southern coast of the Mediter- 
ranean, about halfway between Phoenicia and Spain. 
For hundreds of years it had been a good stopping place 
for the ships in their long travels eastward and west- 
ward. It was also in the valley of the river Bagradas, 
the richest grain district of northern Africa. In size 
it was, at the time Rome declared war against it, larger 
than St. Louis, and it was a very beautiful city. Its 
center was a great rock, the Byrsa, which served 
the Carthaginians as a good place of defense, as the 
Acropolis did the Athenians. Here were built the chief 
temples and storehouses, which held enough food for 
the fifty thousand soldiers who lived there and defended 
the city when it was attacked. The Byrsa was two hun- 
dred feet high. Wherever its sides were sloping and 
easily climbed, there were thick walls built. North of the 
Acropolis was the new city, or Megara, as it was called. 

The houses and temples of Carthage were peculiar. 
The people did not like straight lines, so they built their 
houses or rooms round or circular. They built mostly of 
stone, made of pieces of rock cemented together with 
fine sand and lime. The streets were beautiful and had 
fine shady walks. These were adorned with statues ob- 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 173 

tained from the Greek cities of Sicily during war, for Car- 
thage fought the Greeks in Sicily very much, and carried 
home much of the rich art they found there. The Cartha- 
ginians themselves did not make beautiful statues and 
pictures, as the Greeks did. As Carthage stood upon an 
isthmus, or narrow projection into the sea, it could be 
easily defended. The city was separated from the main- 
land by three thick walls running side by side. These 
were forty-five feet high and thirty-three feet thick. 
Why did they build them so thick ? Well, they were cut 
up into rooms, and within them soldiers lived. Some also 
served as stables for the horses and elephants. In fact, 
within them could be kept at one time three hundred 
elephants of war, four thousand horses, and twenty -four 
thousand soldiers, with their armor and all the materials 
of war. On the walls towers four stories high were 
built at intervals, from which the Carthaginians could 
watch any enemy_that might come against them. As I 
have said, these three walls ran on the mainland part 
way around the city, but one of them extended entirely 
around, a distance of twenty-four miles, running right 
along on the water front. Thus the enemy could not 
land an army in the city from their ships. What a 
strongly fortified city this must have been ! Its massive 
walls make us think of Old Tyre. 

Now let us imagine the harbor of Carthage. It was 
round, and looked as a great circus would if it were all 
scooped out in the center and filled with water. In this 
harbor gathered hundreds of ships from all directions, 
and of all sizes. There were triremes much like those 
the Greeks used ; there were also larger ships, with five 
rows of oars, and therefore called quinqueremes. It is 



174 SCHOOL HISTORY 

said that these vessels could be rowed as fast as our 
modern war-vessels can travel. How like a swarming 
beehive the scene must have been around the harbor 
as the ships went out and in laden with products from 
all parts of the world. Here were vessels from the 
eastern Mediterranean. They were laden with linen 
from Egypt, gold and pearls from the East, frankin- 
cense from Arabia, oil and wine from India, copper 
from Cyprus, and pottery and fine wines from Greece. 
Here also was a trireme coming in from the North. It 
had honey and wax from Corsica, and iron from the 
island of Elba, north of Corsica. 

But the quinqueremes had traveled to distant seas — 
much farther than the ships of any other nation had 
dared to go. Some came from the Baltic Sea, where 
they got amber ; others from England, where tin was 
obtained. On the way back they touched at Spain, 
where they obtained much silver from her rich mines. 
Other quinqueremes passed Spain at the Pillars of Her- 
cules, the narrow gateway from the Mediterranean out 
into the Atlantic, and then crept down the coast of 
Africa, as far as the Niger River. Here they obtained 
slaves, ivory, lion and panther skins, salt from the salt 
lakes and salt mines of the desert, fruits, gold and pre- 
cious stones from the African coast. Carthage took these 
products, manufactured them into goods, loaded her 
ships with them, and set out again to trade with peoples 
in all parts of the world. Now, when we see these 
riches flowing in from every quarter of the world, we 
do not wonder that Carthage grew rich, became the 
mistress of the sea, and, in the third century before 
Christ, was the wealthiest city perhaps in the world. 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 175. 

But I have not yet told you all about Carthage. Like 
Rome, she was a conquering country, and after several 
centuries came to own and control a vast surrounding 
country. At first, as I told you, Carthage was a mere 
trading-post. For a great many years she paid rents to 
the natives around her for the use of their land, because 
at first she did not wish to own land herself, but was 
content to carry on a city trade. As time went on the 
Greeks began to move into their city. Carthage then 
saw that if she did not keep them out, the number of 
the Greeks would gradually increase, and finally the Car- 
thaginians would be crowded out, just as the Greeks had 
crowded out the Phoenicians in southern Italy. Of 
course Carthage had no right to order the Greeks to 
stay out of the country about her, for it did not belong 
to her. But at last, four hundred years after she had 
been paying rent to the natives, she refused to do so 
any longer, and took possession of it. Carthage now 
ordered the Greeks to stay out, and began pushing the 
tribes about her farther and farther back into the coun- 
try, and claiming all the conquered land for herself. 
In this way the nobles of Carthage got immense farms. 
But after getting them they must get men to till them, 
for the Carthaginian nobles did not work much them- 
selves. Now you must see how Carthage obtained her 
laborers. 

Let us again follow the quinqueremes as they go on 
their journeys. Hundreds of them sail westward, past 
the Pillars of Hercules, and creep down the western 
coast of Africa. Here at night hundreds of men slip 
into the negro villages and snatch the sleeping negro 
men, women and children from their homes, bind them 



1/6 SCHOOL HISTORY 

in chains and load them on their ships. Thus thousands 
and hundreds of thousands of negro slaves are carried 
into Carthage. They are then sold to the nobles, sent 
out to the great farms, and forced to work under the 
lash. It is said that many single farmers owned as many 
as twenty thousand slaves. So you can easily see how 
the Carthaginians made part of their money; it was by 
slave-labor, not by their own. Do you believe these 
slaves would love Carthage and the great farms as 
much as the Roman farmers loved Rome and the little 
farms which they had made by their own toil ? 

Gradually, as Carthage grew to be a great country at 
home, she established trading-posts wherever she went, 
just as Tyre had done. At the time at which we are 
studying, — that is, about two hundred and fifty years 
before Christ was born, — she extended along the north- 
ern coast of Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean, a 
distance of one thousand six hundred miles, or farther 
than from St. Louis to New York. She owned Corsica 
and Sardinia ; also cities in Spain and western Sicily. 
You shall hear more of why she wished Sicily after a 
while. 

But I must tell you that Carthage treated the people 
whom she ruled quite differently from the way Rome 
at this time treated her subjects. You already know 
how Rome built fine roads to her conquered cities, 
compelled them to trade with her, and soon made them 
proud to be called Romans. The tribes about Carthage 
hated her because she oppressed them sorely and made 
them pay exceedingly heavy taxes. For example, 
Leptis, a small city south of Carthage, is said to have 
paid $400,000 in taxes every year ; and to make a dollar 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 177 

then perhaps required as much work as to make ten 
dollars now. If any of the cities delayed the least in the 
payment of taxes, or grumbled, the leading citizens were 
put in chains, beheaded, or crucified at once. The sur- 
rounding tribes were compelled to raise only such crops 
as Carthage required, and to supply whatever she or- 
dered ; no one was allowed to own a weapon of any 
sort, because Carthage was always afraid of a rebellion ; 
if a village rebelled against Carthage, all the inhabitants 
were sold into slavery. 

You may wonder why all these tribes permitted this 
so long. I will tell you the main reason. With part of 
the taxes obtained from her subjects, Carthage hired 
people to fight for her. Most of her own citizens would 
not fight, for they were too busy trading. Now you can 
see if a time comes when Carthage is unable to pay her 
soldiers, or if any other country is able to pay more than 
Carthage, we shall not be surprised to find the people 
she has conquered and oppressed fighting against her. 
How different all this is from Rome at this time ! The 
Roman farmers, almost to a man, proudly fought for 
Rome, because Rome gave them good laws, protected 
their homes, built roads to their farms, and at this time 
taxed them lightly as compared with Carthage. 

So now you can see, I hope, in your minds as well as 
on the map, the position of two rich and powerful cities, 
— Rome in the center of Italy, and Carthage three hun- 
dred and fifty miles south, on the southern coast of the 
Mediterranean Sea. Each is looking with jealous eye 
toward the other. At the least trifle they will jump at 
each other's throats like two mad dogs. 

But I mentioned Sicily a while ago, and said you 



178 SCHOOL HISTORY 

should hear more of it. Look again at the map and 
notice the three-cornered island at the toe of the boot. 
This island is Sicily. As I have said before, the boot is 
drawn back as if to kick, and you shall learn before long 
that the country of Rome really did treat Sicily very 
roughly. Look at the great Mediterranean Sea, and you 
will see that this island is almost in the middle of it. 
It looks as if Sicily is between two large lakes, — the 
eastern and western halves of the Mediterranean. 
What a fine stopping place this must have been for the 
ships in their long journeys from Greece, Phoenicia or 
Egypt, to Rome, Spain and the islands of the western 
Mediterranean and far away England ! It makes us 
think of the Hawaiian Islands, in the middle of the Pa- 
cific, where our own ships stop for coal, fresh water 
and new supplies on their long trips to Japan, China, 
India and the Philippine Islands. Since Sicily had 
been the stopping place of the Mediterranean ships for 
a thousand years, it is easy to see why many different 
peoples would want it and be willing to fight for it. 
You remember of learning last year how the Greeks 
flocked to this island from their native country and 
built great cities upon it. 

But look again at the map, and you will see that this 
island is not so very much farther from the city of Rome 
than it is from Carthage. The northeastern corner 
almost touches the southern part of Italy. In fact it is 
only two miles from it. The western corner of the 
island is not much more than a hundred miles from 
Carthage. A trireme could easily run across between 
sunrise and sunset. So here are two great cities, one 
mighty on land, the other mighty on sea, both eagerly 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 179 

eyeing Sicily. Can you see the two hungry dogs, as we 
said awhile ago, ready to jump for the bone? But is the 
bone worth fighting for ? Let us look farther and see. 

Sicily is the largest island of the Mediterranean Sea, 
being just a little larger than New Jersey. But how 
different its surface is from New Jersey ! No land 
could well be more mountainous than Sicily. In it are 
no large, flat farms, as there are in New Jersey or 
Kansas, for example. Indeed there is not a spot in 
the whole island that is out of sight of a large hill, and 
in most places lofty mountains are in sight. Since this 
island is so small, of course there are no large rivers, 
and hence we shall see no ships on them, as we have 
seen so often on the Nile and Tiber. There were, how- 
ever, upon the island many small creeks, streams and 
springs. During the winter rains these became little 
torrents, but during the summer they became almost or 
completely dry. 

If we were to imagine ourselves in Sicily during the 
spring or summer, we should see everything fresh and 
green, for the slopes of the hills and the little valleys 
were very rich and fertile. Forests would cover the 
hills and mountains. We would also find hundreds of 
orchards and vineyards on the hill slopes. And I must 
tell you that such an abundance of grain was raised on 
this island, and so much did Rome depend upon it for its 
wheat, that it came to be called "the granary of Rome." 
So rich was the ground that even on the hilly and stony 
places rich patches of wheat would grow between the 
stones. Indeed, it is said that one bushel of wheat 
sown would produce three hundred bushels. No 
countrv in the world raised more abundant or finer 



180 SCHOOL HISTORY 

wheat than Sicily did. Hundreds of flocks of sheep, 
also, and herds of cattle fed on the mountain slopes. 
On the southern coast was raised the finest breed of 
horses. It was here that Rome got horses for her 
cavalry. 

As I told you, the rivers were small, so the ships 
could not go inland, and for this reason the trading was 
done at the seacoast. And here it was that the large 
cities grew up. 

One of these cities, Syracuse, on the southeastern 
corner of the island, was very large and rich ; and 
Athens itself was the only city in the world that was 
more beautiful. 

This island, with its numerous streams, its beautiful 
valleys, its vineyards, its wheat fields, its orchards of 
olives and fruits, its fine breed of horses, its herds of 
sheep and goats, and its wealthy cities, is the prize for 
which both Rome and Carthage are struggling. Do 
you think it was worth the struggle ? 

In early time Carthage reached her arm across the 
Mediterranean and obtained the western half of the 
island for herself. Rome, now jealous of the rising 
Carthaginian power, desired to own the whole island. 
An excuse for fighting was easily found by the Romans, 
and the first great struggle between the two strongest 
cities of the world at that time began two hundred and 
sixty-four years before Christ, and lasted twenty-three 
years. 

City after city fell in Sicily, until Rome had con- 
quered the whole island except a few strong forts on 
the coast. These were held by the great Carthaginian, 
Ha-mil'car. No Roman general was a match for him. 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 181 

It was now plain to Rome that if Carthage was to be 
conquered, her great power on the sea must be de- 
stroyed. Rome then rapidly built fleets. Soon she 
became powerful on the sea and beat the Carthaginians 
wherever she met them. Peace was declared after 
twenty-three years of fighting, and the great general 
Hamilcar, who had never lost a battle on land, and 
had stubbornly held his forts for seven years, was com- 
pelled to leave Sicily because of the failure of the 
Carthaginian ships at sea. Not only was Carthage 
forced to give up Sicily, with all its riches, and the 
islands about it, but she was also compelled by Rome 
to pay the large sum of $4,000,000, which, because 
money was so scarce then, would be equal in value to 
perhaps ten times that much now. 

Shortly afterward, while Carthage was having great 
trouble with her slaves, Rome seized both Corsica and 
Sardinia. When Carthage then complained, Rome 
compelled her to pay another large sum of money, 
a million and a half of dollars. 

All this was hard for Carthage to bear. Some of her 
citizens, especially the nobles, were willing, however, 
to bear it, for they wanted to trade and did not wish to 
fight. But there was one man who tried to stir his 
people to fight for their country. This was the brave 
Hamilcar. And now let us look at his plans. 

Hamilcar was elected commander of Carthage's army 
and resolved to conquer Spain. This was the first step 
in his plan to humble Rome and regain Sicily. For 
fear he should not live to strike Rome the final blow, he 
required his little son, Hannibal, who was then about 
nine years old, to swear at the altar of his god, Baal, 



182 SCHOOL HISTORY 

to humble Rome and remain her enemy forever. You 
shall see presently how courageously he did this. 
Hamilcar then took Hannibal to Spain with him. 
Here he remained in camp for nine years and became 
used to the soldier's life. At eighteen he was sent 
back to Carthage to receive his education. There he 
became a good athlete, obtained a good knowledge of 
Greek, and came to know much about the history of 
the Greeks and Romans, and the great peoples who 
had 'lived before them. He then returned to Spain 
and gained further schooling in the rough camp of 
war. When Hannibal was twenty-nine Hamilcar died, 
and the army declared that Hannibal should be their 
leader. 

Thus you see Hannibal was not made general merely 
because he was the son of Hamilcar. He was, in fact, 
much like his father in many ways, but he was also 
the best rider and the best marcher in the whole 
Carthaginian army. He was willing to bear the greatest 
hardships in order to fulfill the sacred promise he had 
made his father when a boy, — that he would give his 
life to humbling Rome. Oftentimes on the march he 
slept on the bare ground with only a cloak for cover. 
He was ever ready to bear the same trials and hard- 
ships that his men did. For this reason his soldiers 
loved him, and as he never complained of the hard 
things that came, they too were ashamed to complain. 

Soon Hannibal with his brave army had captured 
almost all Spain, — or as far north as the Ebro River, — 
and by the products of the rich silver mines of Spain 
Carthage had gained much wealth. So long as the 
war did not cost her as much money as they were 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 183 

getting from the mines, the nobles of Carthage did 
not complain. They were glad to have the land con- 
quered from the wild Spaniards, if only some one 
except the rich merchants and planters of Carthage 
would do the fighting. But by all this fighting in Spain 
an army is being trained for a greater task; for Hanni- 
bal, though young, was very wise. He took this as 
the best means to train an army with which to strike 
Rome a deathblow. He began by attacking Sagun- 
tum, a city on the eastern coast of Spain. This city 
was a friend of Rome's, and he knew that to seize it 
would make Rome angry and lead her to declare war. 
Carthage did not much like this new action of Han- 
nibal against Rome. But when Saguntum fell, after 
a siege of eight months, and the rich spoils of gold, 
silver and fine weapons went flowing home to Carthage, 
the people rejoiced and declared war against, Rome. 
If the war would continue to enrich her greedy 
merchants, Carthage would be pleased. When war 
was declared Hannibal began to make his plans ; and 
when I tell you of the great plan he made you will 
see something as to whether he was a brave man and 
a great general or not. He decided to make his way 
by land through fierce barbaric tribes from Spain to 
Italy, gaining if he could the help of the Gauls, a 
people living far north of Rome, up in the passes and 
around the feet of the Alps. His further plan was 
to stir up all those nations of Italy who had fought 
against Rome so long ago, such as the Gauls, Sam- 
nites and the Greeks, and get them to join his army 
against Rome. He could not go in ships, for Car- 
thage, as you remember, had lost her power on the 



1 84 SCHOOL HISTORY 

sea in her first struggle with Rome. So he now- 
started out on his long journey, a distance of over 
eleven hundred miles, farther than from Chicago to 
New York, before he could reach northern Italy and 
get help from the Gauls. 

Let us take the map and follow Hannibal and see the 
difficulties he met and how he overcame them. Leav- 
ing his brother, Hasdrubal, with an army to watch 
Spain, he started out in the spring of 218 B.C., with an 
army of ninety thousand foot-soldiers, twelve thousand 
cavalry and thirty-seven elephants. At first he marched 
northward and crossed the Pyrenees Mountains. In 
doing so he had to fight step by step the wild Spaniards 
who occupied the mountain passes, and so lost many 
men. Some of his troops were left to hold the con- 
quered lands, while others were sent home because they 
were not brave enough for Hannibal. This left Hanni- 
bal fifty thousand foot-soldiers, nine thousand cavalry, 
and thirty-seven elephants, or two-thirds as many men 
as he started out with. 

Now let us imagine how this army looked. There 
were but few Carthaginians in it, for as I told you, Car- 
thage hired most of her troops of other nations. She 
gathered them in as she did her commerce, from all 
parts of the earth. There were thousands of Celts, or 
Gauls, from the mountains of Spain, who were, there- 
fore, quite used to fighting. These wore a white woolen 
tunic, with red edges, and carried a shield of bull's hide, 
a spear and a cut-and-thrust sword. There were other 
Gauls, in kilts, or naked to the thigh, with their huge 
shields, a spear and a long, broad sword, which they 
wielded very skillfully. There were also two thousand 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 185 

slingers and some archers from the Balearic Islands just 
east of Spain. Nowhere else in the world were there 
slingers like these. They carried two slings, one for 
throwing long distances and one for short. They threw 
both stones and metal bullets. 

There were also troops from Africa. Being used to 
the warm country, they wore but little clothing, covering 
their shoulders with a cloak, or the skin of a goat, 
leopard or lion, while their legs were bare. Then, 
there were the Numidian cavalry of Africa, who were 
the best horsemen in the world. In these lay Hanni- 
bal's greatest strength. The Numidian tribes of the 
desert went almost without clothing, being covered 
sometimes with a leopard or tiger skin, and sometimes 
with a mere girdle of skin around the waist. They used 
no saddle or bridle in riding, but guided their small wiry 
horses by their voice or with a slender rod, or stick. 
These horsemen, always plucky and tireless, were very 
skillful in the use of the spear. 

The elephants were used to charge upon the enemy, 
whom they trampled down. Towers were also fastened 
to their backs, and these were filled with archers and 
slingers. 

The army carried along with it but little baggage, for 
Hannibal had so far to go and wished to go so quickly 
that he took along but little heavy material. The 
baggage-train consisted of horses and mules. Carts 
were not employed till after they reached Italy. 

Although Hannibal's army was made up of people of 
different nations and various languages, yet it was per- 
haps the best-trained army in the world ; for since the 
first day that Hannibal had taken command, his keen 



1 86 SCHOOL HISTORY 

eye and wise judgment had been selecting officers and 
men who would laugh at the hardships of war and 
stand like a wall before the Roman sword. 

Now let us return to the march. Hannibal had no 
trouble till he reached the Rhone, a swift and danger- 
ous river, fed by Alpine snows. Here were two great 
dangers : first, it was a great question how to get the 
army and elephants across the river, when they had no 
boats ; and second, a large army of Gauls were on the 
opposite side of the river and threatened to destroy his 
army should he attempt to get across. Some men 
would have given up under such difficulties, but Hanni- 
bal was neither worried nor discouraged. He bought 
all the boats he could from the natives and made large 
rafts himself. While he was doing this, he sent Hanno, 
one of his best generals, with some troops, quietly up 
the river to a shallow place, where they crossed without 
difficulty. When Hannibal attempted to cross, the 
Gauls faced him in full force, but just then Hanno 
attacked them in the rear. So surprised were the Gauls 
that they were completely routed, and Hannibal with 
his army crossed in safety. The elephants became very 
much frightened at the floating earth-covered rafts on 
which they were led, and some of them jumped off into 
the water, drowning their drivers. The water was not 
so deep but that the elephants could walk on the bottom, 
with their trunks thrust up out of the water to breathe. 
Thus not an elephant was lost. 

For sixteen days Hannibal now marched through a 
rich country of half-friendly Gauls, till he came to the 
foot of the Alps. Here he did deeds so famous that 
they will not be forgotten so long as Hannibal himself 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 187 

is remembered. There is no one thing, perhaps, that 
has made Hannibal famous so much as his pluck and 
bravery in crossing the Alps, and I must now tell you 
just a little about it. 

One time, as the soldiers and the baggage-train were 
struggling upward along a narrow mountain-path, the 
natives, from the heights above, hurled javelins, and 
rolled huge blocks of stone upon them. It looked for a 
time as if the whole army would be dashed into the 
gorges below. But Hannibal restored order, took a 
position of great danger, and when night came on sent 
a body of troops above the natives, who came upon them 
by surprise. By desperate fighting and with great loss 
of beasts and baggage the gorge was cleared, and the 
worn and weakened army moved on. 

After nine days of cold, hunger and climbing, the 
army reached the small plain at the summit of the Alps, 
where the discouraged troops were given two days' rest. 
Hannibal cheered them by pointing their gaze in imag- 
ination to the walls of Rome and to the comforts and 
spoils soon to be theirs in the sunny plains of Italy. 
After the short rest, amid the storms of snow, they be- 
gan to descend the southern slope. This being steeper 
and covered with fresh snows, made it more dangerous 
for both beasts and men than the ascent of the northern 
slope had been. Men and horses often lost their footing 
and plunged to their death in the gorges below. Once 
they had to stop for three days to cut a road through 
solid rock large enough for the elephants to pass 
along. The great beasts suffered severely from 
hunger and cold, for surrounded by the great snow- 
fields and ice it was very different from their nat- 



1 88 SCHOOL HISTORY 

ural surroundings on the sunny plains of northern 
Africa. 

After nine days they reached the foot of the moun- 
tains, ragged, weak and worn. Over half of the army, 
that is, thirty-three thousand men, had been lost. It now 
numbered but twenty-six thousand. It was this little 
handful of worn-out men and a few half-starved beasts 
that were to be thrown against the gigantic power of 
Rome, with millions of men for the army and the largest 
cavalry then in the world. But Hannibal was at their 
head. 

Hannibal's army was now among its friends, the 
Gauls, who dwelt in the sunny valley of the Po, south 
of the Alps, and it halted there for food. While it 
rests for a few weeks and the starving beasts are fed 
till they are strong again, let us look at the Roman 
army Hannibal has to meet. Its real strength lay not 
in its splendid cavalry, but in the common foot-soldier, 
who fought for his home, his little farm, his gods and 
his nation. Any Roman citizen from his seventeenth 
to his forty-sixth year might be called upon to serve 
twenty campaigns in the infantry and ten in the cavalry. 

The Roman soldier, as he marched behind the flag 
with the " eagle of Jove " perched on top of the staff, 
looked quite different from our soldier-boy in blue. 
Besides his tunic (a woolen shirt coming to the knees, 
bound round the waist by a girdle), he had his imple- 
ments of warfare, consisting first of his armor of de- 
fense, and second of offensive armor and weapons. 
The helmet, shield, breastplate and greave formed 
his armor of defense. The helmet, shaped like a 
cap, served as a protection for the head. It was 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 189 

made of bronze and had a plume of three black or 
scarlet feathers in it to make the soldier look grander 
and taller as he went on the march or engaged in the 
battle. The shield was about four feet long by two and a 
half feet broad, and was slightly curved, so that it would 
fit snug about the body and not present a flat surface, 
easily pierced by the enemy's spear. This shield was 
carried on the left arm. It was made of two boards of 
the size of the shield, which were glued together. The 
outer surface was covered, first with a coarse canvas, 
and then with a calf's hide. An iron rim was put on 
the upper edge so that the shield could not easily be 
split or injured by the downward stroke of a sword in 
the hands of the enemy. The under edges were also 
protected by an iron rim so that it might not be 
injured when resting on the ground. This shield was 
not found strong enough at all times to resist the flying 
spears and hurled stones of the slingers in the hands of 
the enemy, so later the outward surface was covered 
with iron. 

The wealthy soldiers wore an armor about their 
breasts. This was much like a vest and was made of 
strips of iron running up and down, which were fastened 
together crosswise by strong strips of leather. This 
armor protected the upper part of the body from the 
swords of the enemy. In addition to this, most of the 
soldiers wore a brass plate, nine inches square, as a pro- 
tection to the breast. In a combat with the sword the 
Roman soldier advanced his right foot. As a protec- 
tion to his leg he wore a legging, called a greave. 
This was shaped like the half of a boot-leg split up and 
down, and was made of metal to fit the front and sides 



igo SCHOOL HISTORY 

of the leg. It was lined with leather or cloth, so as not 
to rub the soldier's leg. It extended from the ankle 
to just above the knee. Sometimes the soldier wore 
greaves on both legs, for he advanced his left foot when 
he hurled the spear. 

His weapons of attack consisted of the sword and two 
spears. The sword was worn on the right side. It had 
a strong straight blade and was used for both cutting 
and thrusting. Besides the sword he carried two spears, 
which were his chief weapons in battle. They were 
almost seven feet long, including the handle, and about 
three inches thick. The shaft was four feet and a half 
long, and a barbed iron head, of the same length, ex- 
tended halfway down the shaft to make it firm. 

In addition to these implements the soldier, when in 
marching order, usually carried enough food to last two 
weeks, three or four oak stakes to help form the fence 
about the camp, and several tools, such as hammers and 
augers. Altogether he carried a burden of from sixty 
to eighty pounds, and was trained to march twenty miles 
a, day. Jle was taught to swim rivers, to climb moun- 
tains, to penetrate forests, to wade swamps, and to meet 
and overcome every kind of danger that a life of war 
could lead him into. 

The Romans, always on the watch when they stopped 
for the night, built a strongly fortified camp to guard 
against surprises. Around the square camp was dug a 
ditch fifteen feet deep. The dirt was thrown on the in- 
side and formed a wall ten feet high. Then the oak 
stakes carried by the soldiers were driven firmly into the 
dirt wall. These stakes had sharp points at the top, so 
as to make them hard to climb over. The camp was 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 191 

also strongly guarded by sentinels. So you see it must 
have been almost impossible to surprise the Roman 
soldier at night. 
t The great weakness of the Roman army was in the 
fact that it constantly changed its generals. The con- 
suls were the generals, and these, as you know, were 
elected every year. Rome at this time had over seven 
hundred thousand soldiers ready at a moment's call to 
fight for her ; and so closely had Rome bound her peo- 
ple to her, and so proud were they to be called Roman 
citizens, that every soldier's breast and heart were as 
good a defense for Rome as the armor which he wore. 
But now let us go back to the army at the foot of 
the Alps. The Roman army, even if large and well- 
armed, was np match for Hannibal. He utterly defeated 
them in the very first battle in the Po valley. Many 
Gauls then joined his army, and he marched southward 
toward the Arno River, which had recently overflowed 
from the melting of the mountain snows, forming great 
marshes which were thought to make the roadways 
impassable. But Hannibal had never met a road he 
could not pass, and after putting his most trusty troops 
in front, he gave the order to move. On they went 
for four days and three nights, sometimes in water 
to the armpits, and sleeping on baggage and dead ani- 
mals. All of the elephants, as you remember, had been 
brought safely across the mountains, but now all except 
one had died from the effects of the mountain exposure 
or in battle. Hannibal himself, a part of the time ill, 
sometimes joking with his soldiers, and never dis- 
couraged, made his way through the sea of marshes on 
the back of this one faithful animal. The exposure was 



192 SCHOOL HISTORY 

so severe that the great general lost an eye from an 
inflammation which he was unable to attend to. 

Nowise discouraged by these hardships, on he went 
southward toward Rome, destroying the farms and do- 
ing all he could to persuade Rome's allies to desert 
Rome and join him. 

One morning, during a heavy fog, he completely de- 
feated and almost destroyed the Roman army in a 
second great battle, on the shore of Lake Trasimenus, 
eighty miles northwest of Rome. After this defeat 
Hannibal hoped Rome's friends would desert her. But 
seeing Rome defeated did not make her subjects love 
the old city on the Tiber any the less, for very few 
of them showed any desire to rise in favor of Hannibal. 
Notwithstanding he was now very near Rome, he dared 
not besiege it without the help of the people in the coun- 
try near by to bring him supplies ; so he hastened south- 
ward, hoping to gain the support of the Samnites, whom, 
you remember, Rome fought with and conquered about 
a hundred years before this time. He thought, too, 
surely the Greek cities in southern Italy would leave 
Rome and help him. 

Rome now became very much alarmed, and chose Fa- 
bius as dictator. Fabius tried a new plan, which was to 
hang continually at Hannibal's heels and torment him 
as much as possible, but avoid an open battle. Thus he 
expected finally to wear out Hannibal. For more than 
a year this method was kept up, while Hannibal marched 
about almost as he pleased from one fine valley to 
another, getting plenty of food for his army and trying 
to make friends with Rome's allies. Many of the 
Roman farms were now falling into a desolate condition 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 193 

because the armies had so badly overrun them. For 
this reason Rome to a great extent had to depend on 
Sicily and Egypt for her grain. 

Once Fabius thought he had Hannibal penned up in 
a small valley in southern Italy where he could not get 
out. But Hannibal ordered some soldiers to climb the 
hill slopes which hemmed them in and drive before them 
a number of oxen with lighted fagots on their horns. 
The Romans, thinking they saw the whole Carthaginian 
army marching off during the night by torchlight, left 
the road which they were guarding and made for the 
steep hill. Hannibal then quietly marched out of his 
pen by the unguarded road. 

Rome became impatient of the plan of Fabius, and 
finally ^Emilius Paulus, a more energetic man, was 
elected consul. He enlisted a large army, ninety thou- 
sand or more, and marched at once to Cannae, in south- 
eastern Italy, where Hannibal was encamped, with the 
purpose of defeating him at once. How little they 
knew, even yet, the strength and power of the great 
general ! 

Hannibal met ^Emilius on a plain where there was 
plenty of room to use his cavalry. He formed his men 
in a line the shape of the new moon, with the cavalry at 
each end. When ^Emilius dashed at him with 76,000 
men, Hannibal opened a space for him in the center, 
then closed on both sides with his terrible cavalry, slew 
^milius, most of his staff, many knights and the whole 
army except six thousand men. Hannibal is said to 
have gathered a bushel of gold rings from the dead 
nobles and sent them to Carthage. 

When Rome heard of this great defeat, her people 



194 SCHOOL HISTORY 

were stricken with the greatest fear and proposed to 
leave the city at once. It was then that the senate 
saved the city. Ever wise and brave, even in the great- 
est danger, it ordered that mourning and weeping for 
the dead should cease in the city, the city gates be 
closed, the country crops near Rome be destroyed, so that 
Hannibal's men if they came might be starved out, the 
bridges leading into the city be broken down, and new 
levies of soldiers made. If you would understand this 
war, you must know that it is the senate, sitting as 
calmly as a council of kings in the Capitol at Rome, 
which is guiding every movement in this life-and- 
death struggle. It was at this time one of the wisest, 
and most powerful bodies of men that ever ruled any 
nation, being composed of three hundred trained 
men who had had the experience of holding the 
greatest offices of Rome before they became senators. 
After being elected, they served in the senate for life. 
They were compelled to attend all the meetings of the 
senate and were not allowed to engage in any other 
business. They had charge of religion, the treasury, 
appointed the dictator, determined what nations should 
be their friends, ordered the raising of armies and 
helped in making the laws.« 

Hannibal won no more great victories in Italy after 
Cannae, 216 B.C., though he was victor in many small 
conflicts. Fabius was again made general of the army, 
and he tried his old plan. And thus the years went on, 
Hannibal's army gradually getting smaller through 
death and because he received very little help from 
home ; while Rome, ere long, regained Capua, the rich 
city in the plains of Campania, which had deserted 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 195 

her Mistress on the Seven Hills and gone over to 
Hannibal after the battle of Cannae. 

All this time most of Rome's allies, scattered 
throughout the peninsula, clung to her like children to 
their father in time of danger. The Roman traders 
and farmers loved their country so dearly that they 
would not give up to a foreign foe, even if they lost 
their farms, their stores and their lives. Thus you see 
that when Rome built roads and made her conquered 
people obey her and gave them just laws and peace so 
that they could easily trade and become wealthy, she 
did not do it in vain. 

In this way Rome taught the ancient people, and all 
the world after her, a great lesson. When once she had 
conquered a people, she attached them to herself by 
roads and laws, and forts and colonies, and held them 
as a part of herself in a way that no other nation had 
ever done before. 

At length, two hundred and seven years before Christ, 
Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, who was at the 
head of an army in Spain, resolved to go to the assist- 
ance of his brother. He rapidly crossed the Alps, as 
his brother had done, making use of the same rock 
cuttings and mountain roads which his brother had 
made eleven years before. Then he hastily gathered 
an army in the north of Italy and moved southward to 
meet his brother. Had his plan been successful, it 
might have been the ruin of Rome ; but some of Hasdru- 
bal's messengers, who carried letters telling Hannibal to 
meet Hasdrubal north of Rome, were captured by Ro- 
man troops. The Romans, seeing their great danger, 
raised an army in haste, and met Hasdrubal and his 



196 SCHOOL HISTORY 

army on the Metaurus River before they could join 
Hannibal. The Carthaginians were defeated with 
great slaughter. Hasdrubal bravely fell in the battle, 
fighting to the last. His head was cruelly sent to Han- 
nibal and thrown over the lines into his camp. When 
Hannibal saw it, he sadly remarked, " I recognize in 
this the doom of Carthage." 

Although Hannibal had now lost all hope of con- 
quering Rome, he yet for four years remained in the 
mountains of southern Italy, holding his army together 
as it slowly grew smaller. But Rome now chose a new 
general, who made a new plan to capture Hannibal. 
This general was the famous Scipio, and his plan was 
to cross the Mediterranean and attack Carthage. He 
now raised an army and sailed from southern Italy 
across the sea to attack the great city. 

Hannibal was immediately recalled home by the 
Carthaginians to defend his country. With a new army 
he met the troops of Scipio on the plains of Zama, 
south of Carthage, and for the first time in his life the 
great Hannibal suffered defeat. Twenty thousand of 
his men were slain, and he barely escaped with his own 
life. 

The war was now closed, 202 B.C., and by it Rome 
had gained Spain and the islands of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. She also made Carthage give up her 
war elephants, destroy all her ships of war except 
twenty, and promise to pay to Rome $240,000 each 
year for fifty years. 

Amid all these troubles Hannibal did not give up to 
discouragement. When the war closed, he was placed 
at the head of Carthage ; and so wisely did he rule that 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 197 

the triremes and quinqueremes were soon again pouring 
the riches of the seas into her lap and raising before 
her the vision of being mistress of the seas. 

But as Carthage rose again in strength, Rome's jeal- 
ousy rose also, and especially her jealousy of Hannibal. 
The nobles of Carthage and Roman spies hatched evil 
reports against him ; after seven years of noble effort he 
was forced to leave his city, his house being leveled to 
the earth and all his property seized. Hunted almost 
like a beast for the next twelve years, he fled from one 
country to another to escape the cruel hand of his 
enemies. How the Romans would have liked to have 
him walk in chains in one of their great triumphs! 
Finally, in 183 B.C., when he was perhaps sixty-six years 
old, to avoid capture and so great a disgrace, and being 
betrayed by a king of Asia Minor to whom he had fled 
for protection, Hannibal took poison, fighting, as he had 
sworn, to the last hour of his life against Rome or 
Rome's allies. In the same year (183 b.c.) died his 
great conqueror, Scipio Africanus, also an exile and 
full of bitterness toward the country which he had 
saved when it tottered under the heavy blows of 
Hannibal. 

But Rome was still afraid new Hannibals might be 
born, and in 146 b.c. made an excuse for fighting 
Carthage again, and in order to destroy her trade, 
ordered the Carthaginians to remove the city ten 
miles inland. How this must have stung and vexed 
these brave seamen, who had grown rich on the 
seas for six hundred years ! Of course they refused, 
and then began a four years' siege of their beautiful 
city. 



198 SCHOOL HISTORY 

I have already told you something of the mighty 
walls which surrounded Carthage, and of the great 
towers for protection which were built upon them ; and 
I must now tell you something of the implements of 
war which Rome attacked them with in her stubborn 
siege. The battering-ram was principally used to 
destroy the walls. It was made of the trunk of a 
large tree, and was often one hundred feet long. On 
the end of it was fastened a large piece of iron or bronze, 
shaped like a ram's head. This huge log was swung by 
ropes or chains from a beam above, so that the soldiers 
did not have to hold it up while they swung it backward 
and forward, making the iron head go crashing against 
the stone wall. The beam was made long, so that it 
would reach across the ditch, fifty to seventy-five feet 
wide, which was just outside the wall. A roof was 
built above the battering-ram, so that the men, often- 
times a hundred or more, who were running it, could not 
be hurt by the weapons of the enemy on the walls. 

The Romans also had huge machines called catapults, 
used for hurling large stones, weighing from fifty to 
three hundred pounds, over the walls into the city. 
These they used instead of cannon. Why did they not 
use cannon and cannon balls as we do now ? 

They had also high towers built on wheels, which 
were rolled up to the walls. The enemy in the city 
could prevent them from climbing on top only by throw- 
ing stones down on them, or hot oil, or by digging 
mines under the towers, so they would fall over, or by 
some means setting fire to them, or by building their 
walls still higher than the tower. 

Well, as I told you, Rome surrounded Carthage and 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 199 

began the siege. At first the Carthaginians were in 
despair, but they asked the Romans to give them thirty 
days of peace in which to consider whether they would 
surrender or not. 

In these thirty days the whole city was turned into 
a workshop. Lead was torn from the roofs of the 
houses and made into balls for the slingers. Iron was 
stripped from the walls of the buildings to be beaten 
into swords ; the women cut off their hair to be twisted 
into ropes for the catapults and for strings for the bows ; 
stones were piled on top of the walls to be thrown down 
on those who should attempt to climb them. Oil was 
brought to the walls, and kettles for boiling it. When 
the thirty days were over, and Scipio (the grandson of 
Hannibal's conqueror) came to demand the surrender 
of the city, he was surprised to find the gates closed and 
everything ready for the siege. 

Again and again did Scipio assault the city, only to 
be driven back. The rams battered against the walls, 
but the Carthaginians hung great sacks of earth down 
in front of them and thus broke the shock. Those who 
attempted to scale the walls were scalded with boiling 
oil dashed down by those who defended from the towers 
above. Mines were attempted under the walls, only to 
be stopped by countermines dug by the Carthaginians. 
So, for four weary years full of suffering, the siege went 
on, the Romans pressing closer and closer, the Cartha- 
ginians, defending themselves with heroic courage, but 
every day coming nearer to the point of starvation. 
Disease, death and famine began at last to weaken the 
strong defense of the great city. Finally the walls were 
scaled, the Romans entered and began making their way 



200 SCHOOL HISTORY 

toward the great rock, Byrsa, of which I have already- 
told you. 

In this last hour of despair the Carthaginians hero- 
ically defended every foot of street, every house, every 
temple. For seven days the Romans fought from house 
to house, from story to story, till at last they came to 
the towering rock, upon which was seated the sacred 
temple, defended by fifty thousand men. Diseased and 
starving, these soon surrendered ; many, however, pre- 
ferring death to submission to their great enemy, took 
poison or flung themselves into the flames. 

Then came special orders from Rome to burn Car- 
thage, plow up its site, and curse the ground that no 
city should ever arise upon the site again. 

Thus Carthage, living for six hundred years, and 
becoming the center of the world of trade and wealth 
in her day, as London is in ours, was crushed to death 
by her great rival, and her wealth taken up by Rome. 

No people were ever braver than some of her people, 
and no general in all the world, perhaps, was greater 
than Hannibal. 

But although the Carthaginians were so brave and 
rich, and Hannibal so great a warrior, it is no doubt 
better that Rome succeeded in this great struggle in- 
stead of Carthage. 

Rome, with all her faults, had more than Carthage 
that was good to teach to the world of her time and all 
the world since. 

Rome knew how to teach people of different tribes 
and customs to obey one ruler — Rome; Carthage did 
not know how to build and rule a great nation. Rome 
was coming, at this time, to care for beautiful things ; 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN ROME AND CARTHAGE 201 

Carthage cared little for art but greatly for wealth. 
Carthage still kept up cruel and harsh ways of wor- 
shiping their gods ; Rome was fast losing her faith in 
her own gods, but by conquering the peoples around the 
Mediterranean and teaching them to obey one govern- 
ment instead of many, it led them after a while to think 
of obeying and worshiping one God instead of many. 
Thus, though Rome was often cruel in what she did, 
she unconsciously prepared the path for greater things. 
How all this came about, and how Rome wove her 
web slowly around every nation touching the Mediterra- 
nean, and went on for hundreds of years afterward giv- 
ing the world great models of government, and how after 
a time the gentle spirit of Christ silently conquered the 
medieval and modern world more completely than Rome 
conquered the ancient, we shall see as we go on in the 
upper grades, following the spread of Christianity and 
watching the influence of Rome spread over western 
Europe and in the French and Spanish colonies, even 
to North and South America. 

References 

Dodge : Hannibal ; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

Plutarch : Lives. 

Harding : The City of the Seven Hills ; Scott, Foresman & Co., 

Chicago. 
Guerber: Story of the Romans ; American Bk. Co., Cincinnati. 
Morris : Historical Tales ; Lippincott Co., Philadelphia. 
Creighton : History Primer of Rome ; American Bk. Co., Cincinnati. 
Smith : Rome and Carthage ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Ramsay and Lanciani : Manual of Roman Antiquities ; Scribner's 

Sons, N.Y. 
Study the biographies of Hannibal, Scipio, and Fabius Maximus. 



202 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Guhl and Koner : The Life of the Greeks and Romans ; Scribner's 
Sons, N.Y. 

Myers and Allen: Ancient History; Ginn & Co., Boston. 

How and Leigh : History of Rome to the Death of Caesar ; Long- 
mans, Green & Co., N.Y. 

Mommsen : History of Rome (abridged edition) ; Scribner's 
Sons, N.Y. 

Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 
& Co., N.Y. 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD, BUT 
DESTROYED HERSELF 

When Carthage was conquered and destroyed, Rome's 
struggle for life was over. For five hundred years and 
more she had been meeting and conquering enemies ; 
and although she was almost always successful, there 
were many times when it was not certain whether 
Rome would conquer her enemies, or her enemies 
Rome. 

In this period of five hundred years, Rome had grown 
from a little village of mud huts and a few hundred 
people to a great city of fine buildings and streets, and 
perhaps a half million people. She had grown in size 
from a little plain on the Tiber no larger than a small 
township in one of our counties to a great state extending 
over most of Italy, all of Carthage, and all of the islands 
of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. She had reached her 
strong arm over mountains, plains, rivers, valleys and 
seas, and conquered hundreds of cities with wealth, like 
herself, and in the mountains scores of tribes who spent 
their time in wandering from place to place herding 
cattle and sheep. 

But the one most important thing which Rome had 
done in all this time was this, — she had taken the 
snarling tribes and quarreling cities of the entire Penin- 
sula and had taught them the lesson of strength in union 

203 



204 SCHOOL HISTORY 

as the father taught his sons : — after binding a number 
of sticks together firmly, the father brought the bundle to 
his seven sons, and offered a reward to the one who could 
break them. They all tried and failed except the last 
son. When it came his turn to try, he unbound the 
bundle, took the sticks singly, and easily broke them 
all. When the other sons said to the father that they, 
too, could have broken the sticks by taking them singly, 
the father replied : " My sons, I have taken this method 
of teaching you the important lesson that in union there 
is strength ; if you stand together and help one another 
in life, none can injure you or take from you your posses- 
sions ; if, on the other hand, you do not unite, but each 
struggles, selfishly, against the others, you will not only 
ruin others, but lose your own possessions as well." 
Of all the nations we have studied — Egypt, Judea, 
Phoenicia and Greece — not one of them had any such 
power to bind peoples and nations together and teach 
them to obey as Rome had. And it was because Rome 
had taught these many people to obey her, and stand by 
her, and fight for her, that she had conquered every 
enemy, and had now, about 150 B.C. conquered the 
greatest enemy she ever met, — Carthage. 

Rome now stood like a young Hercules master of Italy, 
Sicily and Carthage, all, as you have seen, about midway 
in the Mediterranean Sea. If it was desired to conquer 
Spain in the West it would be easy, for Spain was made 
up of many tribes who had never been bound together into 
one strong nation ; if it was desired to conqiier the old 
countries of the East, — Greece, Asia Minor, Phoenicia, 
Judea and Egypt, — it would be still easier, for these 
countries were now quarreling among themselves, and, 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 205 

like the sticks, when separated could be easily broken in 
pieces one by one. 

Rome had grown so accustomed to conquering peo- 
ple, that when she had destroyed Carthage, and no 
longer had any great power to fear, she was not 
satisfied. Her appetite grew sharper, the more she 
ate ; the more she conquered, the more she wanted to 
conquer. So for the next fifty years after Carthage was 
destroyed (from 146 to about 100 B.C.), Rome took many 
of her young men from the stores and the plow and 
sent them to Greece and Asia Minor to overcome the 
dozen or more snarling, warring states which had grown 
up there since Alexander the Great's empire broke into 
pieces about two hundred years before. 

We must now see how Rome did this, and finally see 
what effect it had upon Rome herself. 

The first armies sent into the East were under very 
poor generals and the Romans were often defeated. 
The people at last concluded to put ^EmiFi-us Pau'lus 
in command. ^Emilius was the son of the ^Emilius 
Paulus who was killed at Cannae in the battle against 
Hannibal. He was a poor man, who would not make 
himself rich, as many of the other generals did, by dis- 
honesty. Now iEmilius had commanded armies in 
different places and was a great commander. He did 
not thank the people for the honor of making him 
general, but said he supposed they thought he could 
command, otherwise they would not have put him in the 
place, and that now they should not meddle with his 
affairs but leave him to do as he pleased ; and he 
generally did do as he pleased, and generally succeeded 
well. He was now sent against King Perseus of 



206 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Macedonia, who was the cause of much of the trouble 
in the East. At Pyd'na, in Macedonia, he soon defeated 
the king's army, commanding it bareheaded and in light 
armor, took Perseus captive and brought all of the 
king's country under Roman control. He captured 
very great treasure here, but being as honest as an old- 
time Roman, he took nothing for himself. 

^Emilius sent home to Rome all the riches he cap- 
tured, and this displeased some of his soldiers who 
wanted the gold for themselves. When the senate of 
Rome wanted to vote yEmilius a triumph, the army 
objected on that account, but an old general arose and 
said that he now saw how good a general ^Emilius was, 
for he had won a great victory with an army of grum- 
blers. This reply rebuked the soldiers and iEmilius 
was voted a triumph. 

The triumph was a great celebration given by the 
senate to a victorious general, and was the highest 
honor that could be given him. This one given 
/Emilius Paulus was not the first or the last one given 
in Rome, but it was the last one given to an army made 
up of free Roman citizens and a very grand affair and 
so I will tell you something about it. 

That you may better understand what the triumph 
meant, I will tell you what a general had to do in order 
to be granted one. He must have held some of the 
highest offices in the government. He must have been 
actually in command of the army at the time of the 
victory. The victory must have been gained with his 
own troops. There must have been at least five thou- 
sand of the enemy killed in the battle and the war must 
have been brought to a successful close. Now the 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 20J 

general had to do all these things before he might even 
ask for a triumph and then he had often to press his 
claims before the senate quite a while in order to get 
the senate to vote him the honor. 

Let us imagine how it was in Rome on the occasion 
of the triumphal procession. The city was decorated 
with wreaths of flowers. The temples were thrown 
open and incense rose from every altar. Sight-seers, in 
their holiday attire, occupied every nook and corner where 
one could stand. Seats and stands were placed in the 
Forum and in other convenient places to accommodate 
the people. Rome was all alive with sight-seers. The 
public baths, the parks, the race courses, were swarming 
with the crowd. Officers kept the streets open for the 
procession, being careful that the crowd did not get 
in the way. It required three days for all of the cere- 
monies of the triumphal procession of ^milius Paulus. 

The consuls, followed by the senate and trumpeters, 
led the procession, after which came wagonloads of the 
rare and beautiful things taken in the war. Pictures of 
the conquered countries and forts, having banners with 
the names of the towns, were borne after them. This took 
most of the first day. On the second day came wagons 
with armor, arms and the spoils of war. After them 
marched three thousand men bearing bowls filled with 
silver coins, and still after them, men carrying silver- 
ware of all sorts captured and collected from the cap- 
tured towns. But the third day was the most splendid 
of all. The procession was led by a body of flute 
players, followed by young men leading one hundred 
and twenty snow-white oxen, with their horns gilded 
and decked with ribbons. These oxen were intended 



208 SCHOOL HISTORY 

for sacrifices to the gods. After the oxen came seventy- 
seven men bearing basins of gold coins, and with them 
marched those carrying the gold vessels that had been 
captured. Next came the chariot of King Perseus, 
bearing his armor and crown. His little children with 
their teachers followed, and then came the captured 
king himself, dressed in black. After all this followed 
^Emilius Paulus, the conqueror, dressed in the robe of 
Jupiter, wearing a gold crown, and riding in a chariot 
drawn by white horses. A slave rode with him and re- 
minded him every little while that he must not be too 
proud, for he was but a man. The last of the proces- 
sion was composed of the conquering army — the sol- 
diers bearing branches in their hands and singing songs. 
After marching through the streets amid the shouts of 
the throng, the blare of the trumpets and the music of 
the flutes, the general, dressed in his sacred robes, rode 
to the Capitol, slew the oxen, offered sacrifices and paid 
his vows to Jupiter, and then went to the mansion pre- 
pared for him at public expense by the senate. 

One of the events of these wars in the East had a 
great influence on Rome and on her life. This was the 
destruction of another great city. For some offense 
the senate ordered the beautiful city of Corinth, in 
Greece, to be destroyed and burned. 

Corinth was a wealthy city and full of the most beau- 
tiful works of art, such as pictures, statues and build- 
ings. Many scholars and artists lived there. You no 
doubt recollect that in our work last year we found that 
Greece was a land of scholars and artists, and now I 
want to tell you how Rome got a liking for such things, 
and, alas ! for other things which were not so beautiful. 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 209 

The general who captured and destroyed Corinth was 
named Mum'mi-us, who, it seems, was a very ignorant 
but a very honest man. He had no notion of the value 
of the pictures and statues which he found in the city. 
He sent everything to Rome, and it is said that he 
made each captain agree to replace any of the valua- 
bles that might get lost or damaged, just as if it were 
within the officer's power, for example, to carve statues 
equal to those of Phidias, or paint pictures like those of 
Zeux'is (who, it is said, painted grapes so well that he 
deceived the birds), or those of Par-rha'si-us (who 
painted a curtain so well as to deceive even Zeuxis 
himself). Just as these fine things were sent from 
Corinth to Rome, so many other luxurious and artistic 
things were sent from other towns taken by the Romans. 
Indeed, Rome was now rapidly becoming the center 
toward which everything that was artistic, rich or luxuri- 
ous took its way. And since the sober, practical, warlike 
Romans did not have a talent for making these beautiful 
things, when they wanted to learn about them they had 
to learn from the Greeks themselves ; and before they 
could do this, they had to know how to talk and read 
the Greek language. This, as you see, will help the 
Romans to carry Greek art and culture to the West, 
just as we saw, last year, Alexander the Great carried it 
to the East. 

Before this it was not common for the Romans to 
know how to speak or read Greek. Scipio, of whom 
we learned in connection with the war with Hannibal, 
took great interest in Greek, as did Cato, who so strongly 
urged the destruction of Carthage, and the Gracchi, of 
whom we shall learn later. 



2IO SCHOOL HISTORY 

After the destruction of Corinth, her people, together 
with thousands of others of the Greeks, were sold as 
slaves to Rome. You know that Rome has had slaves 
for hundreds of years before this time, but they were 
not educated slaves as these Greeks were. Rome 
scarcely ever left the people alone in the countries she 
conquered, but sold the best of them into slavery. We 
once had, as you know, a great many slaves in this 
country, but you must not think of Roman slavery as 
being just like ours, for the Roman slave was generally 
white like his master, and was only a slave because he 
had been captured in war. 

That you may better understand the effect of- Greek 
slavery in Rome, let us imagine an example : Suppose 
we were to get into a war with France, and, defeating 
her, were to capture a great many educated Frenchmen. 
Then suppose a number of them were brought to the 
capital of your state and your fathers should go there 
and buy a finely educated Frenchman to be your 
teacher, one perhaps who had been a doctor, or lawyer 
or college professor at home ; or suppose he should buy 
the grown-up daughters of a very rich man for your 
house servants, or the sons for farm hands or gardeners. 
Would it not seem strange to have such persons as 
slaves ? Well, it was something so with the Romans 
when they conquered the Greeks and sent so many of 
them home as slaves. Thousands of these educated 
Greeks were scattered among the Roman homes. 
There were also thousands of other slaves, as Cartha- 
ginians, Spaniards, Gauls, Asiatics, — people from all 
parts of the world, — but the Greeks, because of their 
education and manners, of which I will tell you later, 



- HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 211 

had the very greatest influence upon Rome. Human 
beings as slaves became very cheap and very plentiful. 
You have heard the expression, "as cheap as dirt " ; well, 
once the inhabitants of Sardinia rebelled from Rome, 
and when subdued were sold in such numbers that the 
Romans had an expression, " as cheap as a Sardinian." 
A Sardinian could be bought for fifty cents. At one 
time it is said that three-fourths of the population of 
Rome were slaves. As to their influence on Rome let 
us think of these slaves as divided into two classes, or 
groups, — the educated and the uneducated. Of course 
the majority belonged to the uneducated class ; we will 
talk of them first and of the educated last, and this will 
bring us back to the Greeks. 

Slaves on the great farms were treated more like 
animals than like human beings. The master had com- 
plete control of his slaves and could treat them as 
cruelly as his passions moved him to do, even to the 
point of killing them if he liked, and no one could 
interfere. 

The farmers had come now, at about a hundred years 
before Christ, to employ slaves almost altogether in 
cultivating their farms, with the result that the small 
farmers were obliged to give up farming because they 
could not raise produce to sell so cheaply as the large 
farmers. They then went to the cities to make a living, 
and often became idle, poor and vicious, and spent their 
lives in stealing, selling their votes to politicians and 
begging for something to eat. These, you see, are not 
the self-reliant, plain, common people, free and inde- 
pendent, with homes of their own, like those we saw in 
the early days of Rome. They have become a class of 



2l2 SCHOOL HISTORY 

beggars, depending upon the rich for their living. 
This then is one thing the wars and slavery have done 
— they have driven the small farmer out of the country 
into the city, where he has become poorer and often a 
pauper in the city of Rome. Thus some of the Roman 
people are becoming very rich while others grow very 
poor. 

In the second place, there were so many of these slaves 
who had once been free that it kept Rome continually 
watching for fear they would arm themselves and strike 
for freedom, — as in fact they did try to do time and time 
again. In 73 B.C. a slave named Spartacus persuaded 
seventy of his companions to rebel with him. They 
went into the crater of Vesuvius to make arrangements 
for their struggle for liberty. Here they were joined by 
thousands of slaves and robbers. Three thousand Roman 
soldiers were sent against them, but Spartacus quickly 
defeated them. This victory caused the slaves, around 
on the farms and in the cities, to run away from their 
masters by the thousands, until finally Spartacus had a 
slave army of seventy thousand men. They captured 
many of the Romans and treated them as cruelly as 
the Romans had treated the slaves. They managed to 
withstand the Roman armies for two years, or until 
their leader was killed and his followers scattered. 
Thus Rome was always afraid of her slaves, for as I 
said, there were now really more slaves than there were 
Romans. 

Again many of the uneducated slaves were men and 
women who had immoral habits, into which the Romans 
gradually fell. 

But I must tell you also that many of the bad habits 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 21 3 

which Rome contracted from her slave-class, and which 
helped toward her ruin, were taken from the well-edu- 
cated Greeks. 

That you may understand this better, I will tell you 
something about some of the customs of the Greeks 
before they became slaves. You remember how Greece 
was cut up by the mountains. These many little city- 
states were never able to make a single government 
binding them all together. They finally quit trying to do 
so, and gave themselves up to luxurious living, study 
and art. They spent so much time in warring and in 
trying to turn life into pleasure, that they forgot the wor- 
ship of their ancient gods. They argued so much and 
so cleverly about some of their bad habits that nobody 
was quite sure that anything was really wrong or bad. 
One group of these debaters, or philosophers, as they 
were called, was led by a man named Epicurus, who 
taught that all people should live for was to enjoy 
themselves. Epicurus himself was a very good man, 
but what he taught did not have a good effect upon the 
people, because it gave them an excuse for doing all 
sorts of bad things which they would pass by lightly, 
saying these were for their enjoyment, and that Epicurus 
taught that whatever would lead to enjoyment was right 
to do. 

Besides Epicurus, there were many other leaders in 
Greece who taught such different doctrines that the 
people were quite at a loss to know what to believe. 

Now, when these educated Greek slaves taught such 
things to the Romans it had, among other effects, these 
two : — first, the Romans became very luxurious and 
learned to spend a great deal of their time in seeking 



214 SCHOOL HISTORY 

enjoyment at the theater, baths, games, races and 
gladiatorial shows ; and, second, they lost confidence in 
their own gods and in what the gods were able to do for 
them. They gave less attention to serious religious 
life and more to outward shows and ceremonies, such 
as regarding the lightning and thunder and watching 
the flight of birds. 

These are some of the unfortunate results which 
finally grew out of the Romans learning to speak and 
read Greek that they might know about the pictures 
and statues and books that were sent home from 
Corinth and other Greek cities. Of course there were 
some educated slaves from other lands also who 
helped to bring about similar results. 

Since the Romans are becoming such a pleasure- 
loving people, let us now take a look at the way they 
amuse themselves, for we can tell something of a peo- 
ple by the sort of amusements they enjoy. 

We must remember what a great city Rome had 
grown to be. At this time the circuit of the walls of 
the city was about eleven miles, and as many people 
lived within these walls as now live in Chicago, i.e. more 
than one million five hundred thousand. Dotted here 
and there over Italy were many other cities, which had 
theaters and games and amusements just as Rome had. 

Let us now in imagination travel into the city over 
one of those broad and solid roads which the Romans 
knew how to build so well. We notice, at once, the 
very narrow streets. There is a lack of windows in the 
walls of the buildings, many of which are four stories 
high. The front doors open outward, instead of inward 
as ours do. The simple Roman home with thrift and 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 21 5 

freedom and contentment which we knew before the 
war with Carthage, has very much changed, — the great 
mass live now in miserable huts, the great nobles in 
splendid mansions, 

Let us not stop now to see the sights of the streets, but 
enter at once into one of the great mansions, filled in 
the morning with beggars, who hang about the owner 
for their daily bread, and crowded in the evening with 
feasters, who spend fortunes in feasting and drinking. 
To understand the true Roman in early days as he was, 
we must see him chiefly on the farm ; to understand 
him in these later days, we must see him in places of 
luxury and pleasure. Of all his luxuries and displays, 
perhaps none surpassed those connected with his feasts, 
and I must now briefly tell you something of a typical 
one. It is said the dining-table alone, made of rare 
woods, cost the wealthy nobles from twenty to fifty thou- 
sand dollars. Around these tables the feasters reclined 
on gorgeous couches, covered with coverlids dyed scarlet, 
and richly embroidered with figures of birds, beasts and 
flowers. When all had reclined and were ready to dine, 
slaves passed around the table with silver basins and 
ewers, pouring scented water upon the hands of the 
guests and drying them upon dainty napkins. The 
table was burdened with vessels of gold, silver and fine 
earthenware. At each end of the gorgeously furnished 
room were great urns filled with wine, from one of 
which cold drinks were served, from the other, warm. 

After the hands were daintily scented and the room 
filled with fragrance, the feast began ; slaves hurried 
here and there bearing costly and rare dishes, — dormice 
strewed with poppy seeds and honey ; hare with artificial 



2l6 SCHOOL HISTORY 

wings to resemble Pegasus, stuffed fowls, thrushes 
with dressing of raisins and nuts, oysters, scallops, 
snails on silver gridirons, boar stuffed with rare birds, 
with baskets of dates and figs hanging from his tusks, 
fish floating in gravies, which were poured from the 
mouths of four tritons at the corners of the dish, pea- 
cocks sitting on nests, the eggs made of beccaficos sur- 
rounded with yolks of eggs seasoned with pepper, and 
scores of other dishes strange and costly. During all this 
time the music of the harp mingled with the voices of 
boys and girls, who entertained the guests with dance 
and song. Sometimes, while the Romans dined, roses 
were showered down upon them from above. The cost 
of many of these feasts was very great. One man, it is 
said, paid $200 for a single fish, another $4000 for a 
dish of rare birds, and another the sum of $40,000 for 
a single dinner. While a few could live in all this 
luxury, there were thousands of poor slaves whose board 
cost their masters less than two dollars a month. Many 
of the Romans had now grown to be gluttons, and all in 
all you can see how different these days must be from 
those of early times, when a great Roman general 
boasted of making his dinner upon a roasted turnip. 

Now having taken a glimpse of their luxurious din- 
ing, let us see the Roman in the public bath. Many 
of them bathe twice a day, and some as many as seven 
or eight times. By doing so they seek to crowd many 
days into one, and thus get a greater pleasure out of life. 
Beggars and rich alike bathed in these public baths. 
The buildings were built of beautiful marble and were 
among the largest and most splendid in Rome. There 
were united in the great buildings, a theater, a gymna- 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 21 7 

sium, and many bathrooms all of which were ornamented 
within with pictures and statues. These buildings would 
accommodate from 1000 to 3000 persons at a time. The 
cost of a bath was in some instances about one-eighth 
of a cent, but in many places the bath was free. 

The most common form of bath was taken after exercise 
in the gymnasium. The bather undressed in the outer 
room, or perhaps in the warm room, and was then rubbed 
with oil. He then took a sweat in the hot room and 
then a warm bath. Returning to the first room he took 
a cold bath and went back again to the hot room for a 
second sweat. Finally he was rubbed with oil to pre- 
vent his taking cold. The bath over, the bather may 
now listen to what is going on about him. There is a 
noisy crowd in the bath. Some are exercising, others be- 
ing rubbed and kneaded by the servants. At times there 
are noisy quarrels among the motley crowd of bathers ; 
sometimes a thief is caught, for thieving grew very com- 
mon about the baths as the poor class increased in Rome. 
The splash of the swimmers, the noise of the players, 
the cries of those who are selling cakes, sausages and 
sweetmeats, the coming and going of every class of per- 
son, from luxurious senator to miserable beggar, makes 
this one of the most active and interesting meeting places 
for the pleasure-loving Roman. 

The dinner and the bath have taken most of the day. 
On the next day let us start early to the circus to see 
the races and the sort of people who gather there. 

As I have already told you, the common people have 
been pushed off the farms by slavery. They have 
swarmed to the city and have now become a crowd of 
loafers and beggars. All they wish now is something 



218 SCHOOL HISTORY 

to eat and continual amusement. There are so many 
of them that the rulers and rich people scarcely know 
what else to do but to keep them satisfied by giving 
them what they ask for. The games are not religious, 
as they once were in the plain and simple days of early 
Rome, but serve wholly for amusement. There have 
grown to be so many of these games and celebrations 
that one hundred and thirty-five holidays in the year 
are set aside that the people may attend them all. 

But we must now be off for the races. The building 
in which the races were held was called a circus and 
was made of wood and stone. This one, the Circus 
Maximus, which means the great circus, was between a 
quarter and a half mile long and six hundred feet wide. 
The great building was U-shaped. At the open end 
were placed the stalls from which the races start. Tiers 
of seats rose one above the other, as you may have 
seen them at the amphitheaters of shows or fairs. This 
great circus seated about two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand people — nearly twice as many as live in the city 
of Indianapolis. Down through the middle of the U 
was a low wall, around which the races were run and on 
which the judges sat. Instead of having light sulkies 
and a single horse, as our races have, they drove from 
two to ten horses side by side to a two wheeled car, or 
chariot, such as you perhaps have seen in a street parade, 
or in a show. The driver wore some bright color, such 
as red, yellow, green or blue, and the people seemed 
often to think more of the color than of the driver or 
horses ; and so at the races there arose in the motley 
crowd parties called the Reds, Yellows, Greens and Blues. 
These parties became so excited over the success or 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 219 

failure of their favorites that they often came to blows. 
Let us take one of those hard stone seats and watch the 
teams all dart at once from the starting place at the 
open end of the great U into the race and go dashing 
around the circus. What a noise ! The trampling of 
the running horses, the rattle of the chariots, and the 
terrific shouts of the people fairly make the great build- 
ing tremble. We can imagine how the Romans loved a 
race when we think that they often sat watching them 
from early morning until late at night. This was all very 
exciting, but what made it more so to them was that 
they gambled great sums of money on the races. For- 
tunes were made and lost sometimes in a day. These 
are, indeed, very different people from those of the day 
of Cincinnatus. 

But what pleased them more even than the races 
were the games in the amphitheater. Think of some 
great circus, like Barnum's, at which you may have 
been, having instead of wooden seats, seats of stone ; 
instead of walls of canvas, great walls of stone ; and 
instead of two rings, but one great ring with high walls, 
from which nothing can escape when placed inside. 
Such was the Roman amphitheater. 

The principal games held in the amphitheater were 
not games at all, as we would think, but real fights 
between men and beasts. The chief amphitheater in 
Rome was called the Colosseum. It was built of stone, 
was 180 feet high, one-third of a mile around, and it 
would take all the people in a large city to fill it full, for 
it would seat 90,000. Much of this great building is 
still standing, and is to this day one of the most won- 
derful ruins still remaining of the old-time world. The 



220 SCHOOL HISTORY 

men who fought in the amphitheater were called gladi- 
ators. Gladiatorial shows were first given in Rome by 
Brutus, about the time of the first war with Carthage, 
in honor of Brutus' father. The fights between gladi- 
ators were first given only at funerals, for the Romans, 
like the Greeks, thought that the spirits of their de- 
parted dead liked human blood, and the custom became 
very common. Later, slaves and captives were trained 
to fight much as in these days persons are trained for 
the bullfights of Spain and Mexico. Wild beasts, as 
lions, tigers and leopards, were often thrown together in 
the arena to fight. The gladiators usually fought in 
pairs, with swords or spears. When one was wounded 
or overcome, if the people in the great audience wished 
him killed, which they frequently did, they turned down 
their thumbs, and he was killed then and there ; but if he 
had made a good fight and the people wanted him 
spared for another, they turned their thumbs up. At 
one time in the Colosseum these fights were continued 
one hundred and twenty days; ten thousands gladiators 
and many thousands of wild beasts were matched and 
slaughtered for the amusement of the women and chil- 
dren as well as the men. The bullfights and prize fights 
are some of the things left to remind us of Rome's de- 
clining days. 

I have tried now to show you how what was once 
the great plain common people, spend their time in 
Rome. The little farm has been swallowed up by the 
big one ; the common people have been forced to give 
way to the slave. They have forgotten their love of 
country and are happy only when they have something 
to eat and some games with which to amuse themselves. 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 221 

The rich and the noble have come to be without reli- 
gion, have ceased to honor the gods ; and the statues of 
the gods, instead of being objects of worship, serve only 
as ornaments in baths, parks, circuses and theaters. 
The signs and omens, which were once sacred, are now 
scoffed at and have been turned to base uses by dema- 
gogues to deceive and oppress the people. Do you see 
that although Rome has grown rich .in territory, she 
is growing poor in honest, industrious, upright men ? 
Rome is rapidly conquering the world with the sword, 
but in doing so she is overturning herself by wealth, 
slavery, luxury and crime. 

As I have already told you, there are now in Rome 
mainly two classes, the very rich and the very poor. 
But we must not think every Roman has become corrupt 
and lost all love for his country. There are occasionally 
persons who see the danger that Rome is drifting into 
and try to avoid it. Such were the Gracchi, of whom I 
must now tell you. 

Tiberius and Caius Gracchus were brothers and of a 
noble family. Their mother, named Cornelia, was a 
sister of the great Scipio, who conquered Hannibal. 
Their father's name was Tiberius Gracchus. The 
Romans, who sometimes imagined things, told the story 
that one day the father found a couple of snakes in his 
bedchamber. A priest, being consulted, told him he 
must kill one of the snakes, but if he killed the male, 
he himself would soon die ; and if he killed the female 
snake, Cornelia would soon die. He killed the male 
and soon after died. Cornelia then gave all her attention 
to her children. Tiberius was about ten years older than 
Caius. He entered the army when he was old enough 



222 SCHOOL HISTORY 

and by his courage and manliness soon won a place of 
honor. Many of the common people when forced to 
leave their small farms joined the army in the field. 
These people came to know Tiberius well and were 
good friends of his. Tiberius, although of noble family, 
became greatly interested in the common people, so 
he left the army, returned to Rome, and was elected 
tribune in order to try to help them. He tried most 
earnestly to remedy the evils he saw. He brought for- 
ward a law which was intended to divide out the large 
tracts of land, occupied by the rich, to the common 
people, and provide small homes for the poor. Of 
course the rich objected. But finally Tiberius won the 
day, and the law was passed. In order to get the law 
fulfilled Tiberius tried to become elected tribune a 
second time, which was contrary to the Roman law. A 
riot took place at the election, and Tiberius was killed. 

His brother Caius was at the time with the army in 
Spain. He soon came home and was chosen tribune 
by the friends of his brother. He took up the reforms 
of Tiberius. He gained the good will of the poor peo- 
ple by dividing among them some of the lands occupied 
by the rich, and by getting a law passed which gave 
them corn for food for nothing. While this pleased the 
poor it was a bad law for them, because it tended to 
make them more idle than they already were. He won 
some of the rich people to his side by taking power 
from the senate and giving it to them. But Caius 
wanted to do even more than this — he wished to give 
all the Latins throughout Italy the same privileges 
as the citizens of Rome, so that they might all vote 
and have a chance to hold office. When he tried 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 223 

this, the very people he was wanting to help turned 
against him, and when Caius sought to be reelected, the 
common people defeated him. In a riot that followed 
the election, Caius, too, was murdered, that he might not 
be in the way of the nobles. 

For a long time these two brothers were not under- 
stood by the people, but to-day they are looked upon 
as two of the great men of Rome because of their 
efforts to help the poor and to keep Rome from going 
to ruin. Cornelia, by bringing up her children to be 
such unselfish, patriotic men, was no longer known as 
the sister of Scipio, but as the " mother of the Gracchi." 

While Rome was having these troubles at home, and 
spending much time and money in races and gladia- 
torial fights, she also had armies everywhere — in 
Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, northern Africa, Spain and 
Gaul — all of which were made into provinces of Rome. 

She gave these countries peace and good government, 
and bound them closely to herself by those broad, solid 
roads about which we have already studied. It is sur- 
prising to us how rapidly they could carry news over 
these roads. We should think it very good traveling 
to go fifty or sixty miles a day on horseback or in a 
carriage, yet they traveled twice as far in one day. 
Think of going one hundred and thirty-five miles in 
one day on horseback! These roads were to Rome 
what our railroads, telegraphs and telephones are to us, 
— they tied that great country together, and made it 
possible for it to be ruled from a common center at 
Rome. 

But how shall Rome maintain her great government ? 
The Gracchi, as we have seen, are now dead. The 



224 SCHOOL HISTORY 

senate, on account of the selfishness, luxury and vice 
of its members, was becoming less fit each year to rule. 
The time had now come when it was no longer the 
noble body it was in early days, or in the perilous times 
of Hannibal, when nobody could bribe it, and when it 
was so great as to be called an assembly of kings. 
One man soon became master of it, and by so doing 
became master of all Rome. Let us see how this all 
came about. 

A poor country boy, named Caius Marius, entered the 
army, and without any aid rose to the highest position. 
When he was a boy it was told of him that an eagle's 
nest, with seven young ones in it, fell from a tree into 
his lap. The wise men said it meant he would be con- 
sul seven times. He learned to fight under the teach- 
ing of a son of the /Emilius Paulus of whose triumph 
you already know. Marius struggled for a long time 
from one position to another in the lower ranks of the 
army till finally his opportunity came. The Roman 
senate declared war against Jugurtha, ruler of a lit- 
tle kingdom near Carthage, in northwestern Africa. 
Jugurtha was not easily conquered, and Marius, who 
was serving in a subordinate position in the army in 
Africa, concluded to leave the army and go to Rome, 
and see if he could not get to be consul and thus secure 
chief command. 

Now the common soldiers all liked Marius because 
he was one of them, eating the same coarse fare and 
digging in the ditches with them ; but the Roman gen- 
eral commanding in Africa laughed at Marius when he 
wanted to go to Rome to be elected consul, and told 
him he could go, for he had no idea Marius would be 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 225 

chosen. But Marius, on arriving at Rome, told the 
common people how he thought he could bring the war 
to a close in a short time. They believed him, elected 
him consul, and gave him command against Jugurtha. 
He found it harder to conquer Jugurtha than he ex- 
pected, but he was finally successful. 

As soon as this war was over another broke out, and 
Rome was in great danger, so Marius was made consul 
the second time. Well, this continued till Marius had 
been chosen consul five times, and it began to look as 
if he would be consul seven times, as the wise men had 
prophesied when the eagles fell into his lap. 

A great danger to Rome now came from the north- 
east. A fierce and wild tribe of people, carrying their 
wives and children with them and wandering about 
hunting new homes, came through the passes of the 
Alps and tried to settle on the Roman lands in the Po 
valley. These people were large and strong, with 
fierce, blue eyes ; and they frightened the Romans 
more than did the Gauls, who tried to capture Rome 
three hundred years before. 

Marius fought these wild people (who were Teutons, 
or Germans) for quite a while, and at last defeated them 
in a terrific battle at Vercellae, in northern Italy, in the 
year 101 B.C. For this deed Marius was called the Third 
Founder of Rome, was given a splendid triumph and 
was soon after elected consul for the sixth time. 

Now, if Marius had known how to rule as well as he 
knew how to fight, and had tried to right some of the 
wrongs the Gracchi had tried to cure, he might still 
have saved the common people. But it was said of 
him, that he cared to be not a good man, but a great 



226 SCHOOL HISTORY 

one. He hesitated so long whether to join the side of 
the common people or that of the nobles, that he lost 
the good will of many on both sides. At last he became 
the leader of the common people, while Sulla, a famous 
Roman general, became leader of the nobles. The two 
parties, already jealous of each other, began war be- 
tween themselves. Marius was promised the seventh 
consulship, and besides, the two generals being intensely 
jealous, the war was a very bloody one. Sulla's party at 
first overcame Marius and took Rome. It was the first 
time Rome was ever captured by her own people. Marius 
escaped from Rome, but thousands of his followers 
were killed by Sulla. Marius had many strange and 
trying experiences in his flight from his enemies, being 
once captured and having a slave sent to kill him in his 
prison ; but Marius looked so fiercely at him and cried 
out, " Fellow, darest thou slay Caius Marius ? " that the 
slave dropped his sword and ran away. Soon after they 
liberated Marius from prison. 

At last Sulla left Rome to go to the wars, and the 
friends of Marius got control of the city and Marius 
came back — master of Rome again. He went about 
the streets with some soldiers, who killed every friend 
of Sulla's at whom Marius pointed his finger. He was 
now chosen consul the seventh time, but lived afterward 
only a few days. On Sulla's return to Rome he put to 
death more of Marius' friends than Marius had of 
Sulla's. You see at this time instead of Rome using 
her army to protect herself from outside barbarians, she 
is turned into two great camps led by selfish generals 
who care not for Rome but for themselves. 

Sulla forced the senate to choose him dictator for as 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 227 

long as he wished. He was now in complete control of 
Rome. He used his power well after all the evil things 
he had done before. He changed the laws in many 
ways for the better, and, strange to say, he gave up the 
dictatorship after some time and restored the power of 
the senate. Sulla went to his home in the country, 
passed a very luxurious life there for a time, and died 
in 78 B.C., his body, by his own request, being burned. 

Thus, you see, as Rome has gone out to conquer the 
world she has grown weaker and more brutal at home. 
The senate has lost all real power, and one man, as, for 
example, Marius or Sulla, has gained possession of the 
government and uses it for his greedy ends. The morals 
and manners of the people have greatly changed and in 
most cases have become vastly worse than they were in 
the days of Hannibal, two hundred years before Christ, 
and have vastly changed from the simple, sturdy morals 
and manners of early Rome. 

The next great effort made to get control of Rome 
was quite successful. This effort was made by Julius 
Caesar. 

Julius Caesar belonged, to the noble, or patrician, 
class of people, but he was a nephew of Marius, and 
perhaps this is one reason why he joined the people's 
party. He was only a boy when Marius and Sulla were 
having their fierce struggles. At one time Sulla wished 
to kill Caesar but was prevented from doing so by the 
friends of Caesar. Sulla said of him, " In that young 
man there are many Mariuses," and fearing his power 
when he grew to manhood, he wished to kill him while 
he was young. 

Caesar, born in 100 B.C., grew up as other wealthy 



228 SCHOOL HISTORY 

young Romans of that day : living a very luxurious life 
when young, but acquired " learning, taste, wit, elo- 
quence and the sentiments and manners of an accom- 
plished gentleman." He had many wonderful adventures 
when young which we shall study more in detail when 
we study his biography. He was the greatest orator of 
his time except Cicero, and the greatest general of all 
times except Hannibal. He was the greatest statesman 
of Rome. At the age of forty he wished to be chosen 
consul. He had for many years been a great friend to 
the common people, mixing with the lower classes and 
furnishing them with amusements and games which are 
said to have been the most magnificent ever yet seen in 
Rome. He was chosen consul at the age of forty, and 
till the day of his death, 44 B.C., when he was fifty-six 
years old, he was the most powerful man in Rome. 

Two other great men, — Pompey and Crassus, — 
wished also to secure power and wealth through office, 
so they joined with Caesar and the three divided the 
Roman world among them. Crassus was soon killed, 
after which Pompey was made general in the East, and 
Caesar went as general to Gaul — that is, to the country 
we now know as France. There were" many barbaric 
tribes in Gaul, and Caesar spent several years in conquer- 
ing them. While there, Caesar wrote an account of the 
wars with the different tribes, and when you are old 
enough to read Latin you will read Caesar's own account 
of how he conquered that country and made it a province 
of Rome. 

Pompey, thinking Caesar was becoming too great a 
man, tried to gain greater control than he over the 
senate at Rome. This turned these strong friends into 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 229 

bitter enemies. The fact was that the Roman senate 
was very weak and corrupt all this time, and was very 
easily controlled by any strong man ; but Pompey, who 
was now master at Rome, was afraid to try to rule 
openly without pretending to ask the help of the senate. 
He was also very jealous of Caesar's success in Gaul; 
so, when Caesar heard that Pompey was seeking to get 
all power into his own hands, he left his army in Gaul 
and started hastily for Rome. He crossed the river 
Rubicon into Pompey's province, and immediately war 
began between the two great generals to decide which 
should be master of Rome and the whole Roman world. 
The story of the struggle between these two great men 
is a long one, and we shall hear something more about 
it in their biographies ; but here I will tell you that 
Caesar defeated Pompey in several battles and followed 
him to the East, where Pompey himself was killed. 
Caesar was now master of Rome and after some time 
made himself master of the whole Roman world. He 
was given several great triumphs by the senate for his 
various victories. 

Since the senate and people had shown so plainly 
that they were no longer fit to rule, Caesar thought it 
best to carry on the government himself. He, however, 
retained the senate and kept up as well the pretense of 
consulting it. He took the title imperator, or com- 
mander. He was, as I have already said, the greatest 
general Rome ever had, and he could govern wisely 
as well as fight. 

He did many great things for the Roman people. 
He tried to check slavery. He planted new colonies. 
He reformed the laws so as to help the common people 



230 SCHOOL HISTORY 

and changed the calendar to something the way it is now 
in our almanacs. He gave his name to one month of the 
year — July, from Julius. He built many fine buildings 
in Rome and planned others. He extended roads 
throughout the country. He drained great marshes 
near Rome, and thus made new land for settlement. 
But while Caesar was doing all of these things for his 
country he grew to have bitter enemies, who said he was 
striving to be king. On the 15th of March, 44 B.C., 
Caesar went to the senate house to attend a meeting of 
the senate. Quite a crowd of senators gathered about 
him, as if to ask some favors, when suddenly daggers 
were drawn and Caesar was stabbed to death. 

It was a sad day for Rome, for the senate was 
corrupt and unable to rule, and at first there seemed to 
be no one who could fill Caesar's place. Long and 
bloody wars followed between the different parties at 
Rome, and from all the leaders that came forward a 
young nephew of Caesar, named Octavius, afterward 
called Augustus, conquered all his enemies and made 
himself master of the Roman world. The great republic 
which developed Rome into a mighty power is now dead. 
The senate, once so strong and patriotic, is now corrupt 
and selfish ; the plain soldiers, once so brave and stead- 
fast, have been turned into plunderers and seekers for 
spoil. By all this weakness, war and vice, as I have said, 
the government fell into the hands of a single man, and 
this was the very thing that great patriots like the 
Gracchi had given their lives to prevent. 

Augustus was a good man and ruled wisely, giving 
such peace to the Roman world as it had not enjoyed 
for hundreds of years before ; and this peace and order 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 23 1 

lasted during most of the first and second centuries 
after Christ. Men during this time had opportunity to 
think and study and write. Much literature that we 
now read was written then, as the poems of Virgil and 
Horace ; the writings of Tacitus, the greatest of Roman 
historians ; and those of Seneca, the greatest of Roman 
philosophers. 

It seemed in this peaceful time as if Rome was 
returning to all the glory and strength of the old-time 
republic ; and because of the quiet of the great empire, 
the good laws which Rome taught the one hundred and 
twenty millions of people living all around the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, and the many writers of the time, this has 
been called the " golden age of Rome," and sometimes 
the Augustan age. 

But I have not yet told you of the greatest thing that 
occurred in the world just at the time that Rome 
became an empire ; in fact it was the greatest thing that 
has ever occurred in the history of all the world. 

In a village of a far-away eastern province of Rome, 
Judea, was born a child that was to change the history 
of the world more than Alexander or Caesar or any 
other great person had changed it. This was the 
Christ-child. He grew up to manhood, taught peace, 
kindness and brotherly love to the people whom he 
daily mingled with, and was crucified ; but his great life 
gradually came to rule the souls of men more completely 
than Rome had ruled their bodies. The Roman life, as 
I have already told you, went quietly on in the empire 
for almost two hundred years after the birth of Christ, 
during which time all that was best in the Roman 
language, literature and law spread around the Mediter- 



232 SCHOOL HISTORY 

ranean Sea. No nation had ever before brought such 
quiet to the world, or bound it together under one single 
government as had the Romans ; but after a while this 
peace was broken in many ways. Men began to quarrel 
about who should be emperor, and many emperors were 
murdered. The rich people grew richer and more 
vicious ; the poor, poorer and more miserable. The 
races and games were visited more often ; Rome became 
all but a nation of slaves, and taxes grew so heavy upon 
the people that they could not pay them. All this time, 
here and there were growing up small companies of 
people, at first plain people and poor, who had taken up 
the new doctrines of Christ because it gave them some- 
thing to hope for after their worn-out lives of suffering 
and toil. 

The Romans did not like the Christians, because they 
would not worship the emperors as gods, and several 
efforts were made to kill all of them. One very wicked 
emperor, named Nero, gave great games at night and 
lighted his grounds with burning Christians, who had 
been wrapped in tar and pitch and raised on long poles. 
If anything went wrong in Rome, as the occurrence of a 
plague or great fire, the Christians were sure to be 
blamed for it, and many would be put to death. 

Once, when they were having gladiatorial fights, a 
Christian named Te-lem'a-chus jumped into the arena 
and separated the fighters. But Telemachus was stoned 
to death at once by the people for spoiling their sport. 
The emperor, however, ordered the gladiatorial shows 
to be stopped ; there were growing to be so many Chris- 
tians now that he did not dare oppose them. 

The Christians were growing in numbers for two chief 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 233 

reasons : — first, the old religion of Rome, because the 
people had lost confidence in their gods, had ceased to 
give them, peace of mind, while Christianity gave them 
hope and filled the longings and aspirations of the soul 
as no other religion could ; and, second, the government 
all around the Mediterranean Sea with fine roads lead- 
ing to every part of the empire made traveling so easy 
that people could readily pass from place to place and 
carry the new doctrine. 

Finally, about 325 a.d., a Roman emperor named 
Constantine adopted the Christian religion and pro- 
claimed it the religion of the whole empire. From 
that time on all the Roman empire rapidly became 
Christian. 

During the first three centuries after Christ was born, 
Rome was able to keep back the strong German tribes 
who wandered through the woods of the North ; but as 
Rome turned more to pleasure and vice, the Roman 
army was filled largely with German soldiers, who, 
living for a time in Rome, saw some of the new life 
there and often took it back to their German homes. 
Trade gradually sprang up between the Germans and 
Romans, and whole tribes of rude warriors were hired by 
Rome to protect her borders ; but finally in 476 a.d., a 
German barbarian chief, O-do-a'cer, captured the Eternal 
City, compelled the boy-Emperor, Romulus Au-gus'tu-lus, 
to give up the Crown, made himself king, and, with the 
force and ignorance of a barbarian, began to rule in the 
seat which had been occupied by Roman Kings, Consuls 
and Emperors for more than a thousand years. But 
what the Germans, or Teutons, as they are often called, 
found at Rome, and how the Romans finally educated 



234 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the Germans, just as the Greeks educated the Romans, 
we shall see next year in the history work in the fifth 
grade. 

Now let us look back over the great stream of Roman 
history and briefly review what we have seen, 

First we saw infant Rome, nourished, as it were, on 
wolf-milk, grow to be as strong and brave as a wolf 
itself. We saw Rome creep slowly out from her seven 
hills till she had conquered the people near by on the 
plains, then up to the mountains and conquer the rough, 
half-civilized, mountaineers. All these people she bound 
tightly to herself by building permanent roads through 
their territory, settling colonies among them, and teach- 
ing them the laws, manners and customs of Rome. 

All of this time there was going on at Rome the fierce 
struggle between the rich patrician and the poor ple- 
beian. After two hundred years of struggle, the ple- 
beians became equal to the patricians. Rome then felt 
strong, and with a senate, composed of brave, virtuous, 
unselfish men, began the fierce struggle with Carthage 
and her great general, Hannibal. With Carthage con- 
quered, we saw Rome, like a mighty fisherman firmly 
draw her net of law around the Mediterranean and catch 
and hold securely in its meshes all the peoples studied 
in the first, second and third grades, — Egypt, Judea, 
Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and Greece. All these she 
finally bound into one immense government, having one 
ruler, one law, one mighty system of roads reaching to 
every corner of the immense empire. Then we saw 
Greek literature and Greek philosophy spread throughout 
the west. Finally, as Rome was growing old and losing 
her power to rule, we saw the rise of the King whose 



HOW ROME CONQUERED THE WORLD 235 

kingdom was not to be of this world, and whose law 
was to be the law of love. As men came to under- 
stand this law, slowly, quietly and almost unnoticed, 
Christianity took root and, amid much opposition, con- 
tinued to grow till it burst the bounds of the old empire 
and spread throughout Europe. Rome had lived for 
more than a thousand years and had taught the world 
as no other nation had been able to do the great lesson 
of how to build a mighty nation with a single center 
from which to rule. In doing so, she had become the 
great western reservoir which gathered into this center 
the streams of wealth, culture, art, law, philosophy, 
literature, religion and learning which had been slowly 
flowing westward from Memphis, Babylon, Tyre, Jerusa- 
lem, Athens and Alexandria through the thousands of 
years which had gone before. 

When Rome died as a government she did not die in 
the hearts and minds of men, for, as already said, a 
mightier power than she arose to carry all this thought 
and culture forward into the north and west of Europe 
and finally on to America, — this was the great power of 
Christianity and the Christian Church. 

Thus we more and more see, as we go on with our 
study of the stream of history, how the great things 
worked out by one nation are not lost to the world when 
that nation dies, but are caught up and carried on to 
future peoples and nations by the great institutions of 
religion, government, industry, education and social 
life which all people help to work out and which, being 
continually nourished with new thought, always re- 
main young. 



236 SCHOOL HISTORY 



References 

Plutarch : Lives (Two Volumes) ; A. L. Burt, N.Y. 

Preston and Dodge: The Private Life of the Romans; B. L. 

Sanborn, Boston. 
Thomas : Roman Life Under the Caesars ; Putnam's Sons, N.Y. 
Ramsay: Elementary Manual of Roman Antiquities; Scribner's 

Sons, N.Y. 
Pellison : Roman Life in Pliny's Time ; Flood & Vincent, Mead- 

ville, Pa. 
Mommsen : History of Rome (abridged edition) ; Scribner's Sons, 

N.Y. 
Merivale : General History of Rome ; Longmans, Green & Co., 

N.Y. 
Harding : The City of the Seven Hills ; Scott, Foresman & Co., 

Chicago. 
Guerber : The Story of the Romans ; American Book Co., Cincinnati. 
Merivale: The Roman Triumvirates ; n 

The Early Empire. > Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

The Age of the Antonines. ) 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 
Study the biography of Cato, the Gracchi, Pompey, Caesar, Virgil, 

Trajan. 



Capes 



FIFTH-GRADE WORK 

The aim of the fifth-grade work in history as here presented, is 
to help the pupil to see : — 

i. The general geographical conditions of Europe which sur- 
rounded our early Teutonic ancestors, say from the birth of Christ 
down to about 500 a.d. 

2. The effect of these surroundings in forming the early Teutonic 
character, and the kind of religious, social, industrial, political and 
educational life that these " Children of the Woods " lived during 
their infancy. 

3. The influence of Christianity, as developed in the monastery, 
in lifting the Teutonic children up to higher ideals of life. 

4. The influence of Rome, Christianity and the Teutonic spirit, 
all mingling and producing Feudalism and the Feudal Castle, in 
lifting the early Teuton up to higher institutions. 

The material here presented for both teacher and pupil is intended 
to present some of the chief features of three phases of life : — 

a. The life of the early Teuton while his home was chiefly in the 
woods. 

b. This same life as influenced by Christianity and especially by 
the monastery. 

c. This same life as further influenced by Feudalism and espe- 
cially by the Feudal Castle. 



237 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS, 
AND HOW THEY LIVED 

Do you recall how we said Greece consisted of a pen- 
insula which had extending out from it many smaller 
peninsulas, something like the palm of one's hand with 
the stubby fingers extending from it ? If we look at the 
map of Europe, we see that in this respect Europe is a 
large pattern of Greece, for it is in fact only a large 
peninsula of Asia and, in turn, has many smaller penin- 
sulas extending from it. Looking at the map of Europe 
as a whole, you see on the south, projecting into the 
calm, sunny Mediterranean Sea, Greece, Italy and 
Spain, of which we have already learned so much ; ex- 
tending out into the more stormy seas of the North 
are the Scandinavian peninsula and the peninsula of 
Denmark. 

Europe is not large when compared with Asia and 
Africa, but it almost equals either one of them in the 
amount of seacoast it has. This is because there are 
so many arms of the sea extending far into the land 
and so many peninsulas running out into the sea. These 
help to break up the land into many divisions, and you 
have already seen, in the third and fourth grades, how 
one people lived in Greece, another in Italy, and still 
another in Spain, each of these very unlike the others 
until they learned to know their neighbor states. 

Not far from the center of Europe are the Alps, the 

238 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 239 

highest of all the European mountains. From these 
central highlands many smaller ranges run out in every 
direction, making a slope to every side. You have 
already seen how the Apennines, extending down 
through Italy, form the backbone of that country. The 
Pyrenees extend to the west and cut off the peninsula 
of Spain from the rest of Europe. Mountains also 
extend northward, dividing Germany into many parts. 
Others extend to the east, run down into Greece and 
break up that country into many separate little states. 
In fact, in thus being greatly cut up by mountains, 
Europe is much like Greece, just as she is in way of 
peninsulas. 

Rising in the great mountain center of Europe are 
many rivers. The three most important ones are the 
Danube, the Rhine and the Rhone, all of which begin 
at no great distance from one another, but each flows in 
a different direction. The Danube, which is the largest, 
flows southeast and empties its waters into the Black 
Sea ; the Rhine flows to the northwest, between cliffs, 
through mountain valleys, out over the plain, and reaches 
the North Sea ; the Rhone flows southwest and, cutting 
the Pyrenees from the Alps, at last reaches the western 
Mediterranean. Many smaller rivers tumble down from 
the slopes into' these larger streams, so that Europe is 
abundantly supplied with water for pasture and boats. 

Thus you see, no doubt, that Europe, cut up by its 
mountains, with its many river valleys, is quite different, 
for example, from Egypt with its single river and its 
one fruitful plain. In Egypt all the people, since they 
lived in the same valley and used the same river for 
passing from one place to another and lived on the same 



240 SCHOOL HISTORY 

kind of soil, acted and thought in very much the same 
way, thus making one united country which could easily 
be ruled by a single king. 

Over in Greece, where the country was cut up into 
many valleys, shut off from one another by the moun- 
tains, we saw in the third grade how hard it was for the 
people to act and think and work together, even when 
there was great danger, as in the time when Darius and 
Xerxes were driven back from Marathon and Salamis. 
The mountains, too, made it easy for the people of one 
valley to defend themselves against those of another ; 
so each little tribe became quite independent, and when- 
ever it could take advantage of its neighbors, it would 
rarely fail to do so. 

Now Europe, with its center occupied by so many 
great mountains and divided by many rivers, afforded 
just such a chance to the people scattered over it. We 
have already seen how hard it was for Hannibal to 
cross the Pyrenees, and to take his elephants over the 
Rhone, and at last, to climb the Alps to get into Italy. 
In the same way it was just as hard for the Romans to 
get out of Italy into France, or into any of the states 
north of the Alps, — yes, even harder, for the Roman 
side of the Alps was steeper than the other. Now all 
of these things helped to make Europe develop into 
many states and governments instead of just one, as we, 
for example, in the United States have. 

When Caesar crossed the Alps and conquered the 
Gauls in France, he found in many places large fields 
of grain planted and carefully tended by the people 
who lived there. < The country was quite level and open, 
so Caesar and his Roman legions with little trouble 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 241 

succeeded in conquering the Gauls and in making them 
a part of the great nation of Rome. 

Sometime later Drusus, another Roman, crossed the 
Rhine, aiming to conquer the people there as Caesar had 
conquered the Gauls. He did not succeed so well, for 
he found a cold country hard to winter in and a people 
quite different from those which Caesar found in Gaul. 

North of the Alps are many smaller mountains. 
Near the North and the Baltic seas lies a large low 
plain. Between the mountains and the low plain are 
many hills. This whole country of mountains, hills, 
rivers and plain long ago was covered by vast forests 
filled with great marshes and only here and there an 
open meadow. Here, as already said, about two thou- 
sand years ago, came Drusus to conquer our ancestors, 
the Germans, or Teutons, as they are often called. 

He found the Germans to be a large, fierce, powerful, 
white-skinned, blue-eyed, yellow-haired race living in 
this bleak, cold forest. They had no cities and few 
farms but spent their time in hunting the wild boar, 
elk, bear, wolf and buffalo for their food. In their 
struggles with these wild animals and in fighting among 
themselves for the possession of this hunting ground, 
they became brave and fierce. 

There were then no roads through the forests, no 
bridges over the streams, and for many months each 
year the rivers were frozen so deeply that whole armies 
could cross them on the ice. The winters were keen 
and long ; swamps and forest made the climate far 
more severe than it is in that country now ; there was 
then more ice and snow, more fog and rain. 

As a country is, so to a large degree are its people. 



242 SCHOOL HISTORY 

The bitter cold made the Germans hardy, fierce and 
brave. It made them restless, savage, passionate and 
daring. They loved the freedom of a life in the woods 
and by overcoming its difficulties learned to rely upon 
themselves. 

This cold and wet climate of the forest home kept the 
Germans back at first. It kept them from making fine 
statues, from erecting beautiful buildings like the Par- 
thenon, from writing beautiful poetry like the " Iliad " 
and the " Odyssey," from being philosophers like Socrates 
and Plato, or great statesmen like Pericles and Caesar ; 
but by overcoming its hardships they gained a manly in- 
dependence which their neighbors in the sunny south- 
land never possessed, and finally became one of the 
finest, bravest peoples in the world. 

Over their huge bodies, even in this cold country, they 
wore only a sort of short cloak made from the skin of 
some animal or from the wool plucked out of the sheep's 
back, for they had, in the early days when they wandered 
through the woods, not yet learned to shear the sheep. 
They platted it also into a kind of cloth, for they as yet 
knew nothing of weaving. On their heads they wore a 
cap of fur decorated with boars' tusks or horns of cattle. 
They too had also a kind of rude shoe made of skins. 
The women dressed much like the men, while the chil- 
dren often, in spite of the cold, wore very scant clothing. 

The dwelling house — if there was one — was a rude 
hut made of logs, filled in with sticks and mud, and 
covered with a roof of straw, or maybe reeds from the 
neighboring marsh. In the roof a hole was left through 
which the smoke could escape. 

In winter, to keep out the cold weather, they often 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 243 

lived in houses hollowed out of the ground. These 
were usually not very clean, so for the sake of health 
the people grew to be fond of baths. A hot bath 
especially delighted them, and in summer time they 
used the streams freely. A Roman historian tells an 
interesting story of a tribe who, as they were pursuing 
an enemy, accidentally came to a place where there 
were many hot springs. These so much delighted 
them that they stopped several days to bathe to their 
hearts' content. 

In summer time their rude wagons were fitted into 
a kind of house, for to these they could easily hitch 
their oxen and move from place to place when pasture 
land, hunting and fishing gave out. They had not yet 
learned to use stone and mortar for building houses or 
for tiles for the roofs. But we need not wonder at this 
when we remember how restless they were, and how 
little they cared for settled homes. 

The German men had quite a different feeling toward 
their families from any people we have thus far studied. 
Nowhere among Greeks or Romans do we find so much 
respect shown for women as here. Each man had but 
one wife, and he remained faithful to her as she to him. 
She supplied his wants and often when he went to bat- 
tle would go with him. If he was killed she sometimes 
took his place in the fight, and usually chose to die 
rather than return without him. The Romans were 
astonished at the pure family life they found among the 
Germans, and no people we have studied thus far have 
done so much to beautify and ennoble the home as they. 

The house had very little furniture. The German 
hunter slept stretched on a bench, or on a bed made of 



244 SCHOOL HISTORY 

bearskin thrown on the floor in a corner, and it was 
often late on the following day when he arose, and, after 
taking his bath, if it was possible, went off to attend to 
the duties of the morning. Maybe it was some feast 
or hunt that claimed his attention ; maybe some public 
assembly of the freemen of the tribe to which he be- 
longed ; but it was almost never manual labor, or care 
for farm or cattle. 

Among some of the German tribes there were vil- 
lages, but even then the houses were rude affairs and 
stood far apart, and the people had no land which they 
could call their own. All the land about the village 
belonged to the tribe and was called its mark. This 
was divided into three parts. First, there was a space 
where the houses were built. Next, there was a part 
where the ground was cleared and might be cultivated. 
Each year, if any farming was to be done, the village 
chief gave to every free man a small piece of ground 
where he might raise what he wished for food. But 
these fierce Teutonic ancestors of ours loved mostly to 
hunt and to fight, and not to farm. They left that to 
the men too old to fight, to the women, the children 
and the slaves. These would raise the barley and wheat 
out of which the bread and beer were made. The 
slaves were prisoners taken in war and had iron 
collars tightly fitted round their necks, and as a sign 
that they had lost their freedom their hair was cut 
short. They were well treated and were never very 
numerous among the early Germans, for there was little 
work to be done. 

Every village had also a third tract of land, which 
furnished pasture for the horses, cattle and hogs. 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 245 

Often this was woodland, where the hogs could live 
on the acorns and nuts. The German loved his forest 
life too well to care for land. Sometimes he owned 
large herds of cattle and droves of hogs, but these 
could easily be driven from place to place as his fancy 
suited. 

With such an idea of life one can easily see that the 
Germans would not feel the need of belonging to a 
great state ruled by some strong power that could 
protect their property and their lives. Indeed, in the 
dense forest and mountainous region it would have 
been very difficult to make a large strong state, and 
especially so since every German felt that he himself 
was able to protect his own life and scanty possessions. 

A number of families living near one another and 
using the same hunting ground, made up a tribe and 
for their chief they chose their best hunter or their 
bravest warrior, just as when you play a game you 
select as leader the one who best understands it. 
After having made the choice, they placed him on a 
shield and raised him up over their heads. From that 
time on they followed him in war and on the hunt. 
Every warrior tried to win by loyalty and bravery the 
greatest love and respect of the chief ; and every chief 
tried by his bravery to win the greatest number of 
followers. In the hour of danger it was shameful 
for the men to allow the chief to be braver than they, 
or for the chief not to equal the men in bravery. 
When plunder was captured, each soldier received as 
much as the chief himself, — all were regarded as equal. 

The chief himself could not decide matters for the 
tribe. Every freeman had a right to help. Out in 



246 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the forest, under a tree, or on top of a neighboring hill, 
all the freemen assembled bearing their arms. Sitting 
on the ground or on the logs and stumps, as the great 
ox-horn cups of liquor were passed from hand to 
hand, they discussed measures of grave importance 
and adopted them by a ringing clash of weapons, or 
rejected them with cries and groans until the very 
forest rang. 

Here they decided questions of peace and war and 
righted wrongs. Here fathers brought their sons 
when they became of the proper age, and after giving 
them a spear and shield they too became members 
of the assembly, or moot, as they called it, and from 
that time on they were freemen. If in some future battle 
the spear and shield should be lost, the right to be a 
freeman, too, was lost, and this was the most disgrace- 
ful thing that could happen to any one. 

You would no doubt like to know how the Germans 
fought in battle, since they were able to defeat Drusus 
and the Roman legions. Now, I suspect the dense 
forests and great swamps hindered the legions who 
did not know the country well and greatly helped the 
Germans win. Yet the Germans were brave as well 
as fierce, for by and by we shall hear how they no 
longer merely drove the Romans back when they 
came to conquer their country, but how they them- 
selves crossed the Alps and met the Romans in Italy, 
and at last actually did what Hannibal so long wished 
to do, captured Rome itself. But that was many years 
later than when we first meet them, and they had by 
that time learned from the Romans quite a good deal 
more of war than they knew in very early time. 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 247 

How strange their way of fighting must have seemed 
to the well-drilled Romans !. Impatient of delay and 
armed only with a long spear tipped with a sharp, 
narrow iron point and a shield held in front made of 
platted willows or tough skin, and singing a war song 
which told of the bravery of their fathers, they rushed 
into the battle. They had had no drill and training 
such as made the Roman legions powerful, but entered 
the contest so thoroughly in earnest that they won by 
their very bravery rather than by skill. To be a 
coward was to them the greatest possible disgrace, 
but a brave man was the greatest favorite of the gods. 
A life spent in fighting, a glorious death on the battle- 
field, was to them the way to honor and to heaven. 

Woden, or Odin, as he was often called, was 
their god of battle and victory. It was he who pro- 
tected them if they were brave. They thought that 
he was a tall, vigorous man, clad in a suit of gray with a 
blue hood, and that over his strong body he wore a wide 
blue mantle spotted with gray, — the colors of the 
clouds and sky, — for Odin, too, was the god of the 
sky. Often when the battle waged hottest, Odin, as 
they believed, fought in their midst with his spear 
and shield, which never failed to conquer. After the 
battle was over, Odin sent his maidens to choose from 
the battlefield the bravest of the dead warriors whom 
they bore on swift horses over the rainbow bridge into 
the great hall Valhalla, Odin's heaven-home. Odin 
met the bravest at the door to bid them welcome. 
The hope of receiving this welcome and the promise 
of dwelling in Odin's beloved presence from day to 
day and of sharing with him the pleasure of the great 



248 - SCHOOL HISTORY 

feast which he had prepared for them, gave the war- 
riors the greatest courage and made them long to die 
on the battlefield. They especially set apart one day 
of the week as sacred to him and called it Woden's 
day ; and we have changed it but slightly for we still 
call it Wednesday. 

But Odin was not the only god they had. There 
were many others. One important one was his son 
Thor. He was the god of thunder and lightning and 
always carried with him a huge hammer. As he drove 
his chariot drawn by goats through the skies the rum- 
bling of the wheels caused the thunder, and the hurling 
of his huge hammer at his enemies, the lightning. He 
it was who kept the storm in check and drove back the 
fog and mist and cold weather (for these were his 
enemies), and thus protected the herds of cattle and 
droves of hogs. For this the people liked to worship 
him as well as Odin, and so they named one day Trior's 
day, and that is how we come to have Thursday. 

Besides these there was Frey (Fri), who gave them 
peace and prosperity, who brought them joy and sun- 
shine. His sister Freya (Fri'a) was the goddess of love 
and beauty, and it is in her remembrance that we have 
Friday. 

Tyr, or Tui, as some called him, another son of Odin, 
helped his father, so he, too, was god of war and vic- 
tory. Here is a little story which shows how brave they 
thought him to be, and you can see from it that the 
Germans believed that to be godlike meant to be brave. 

" The great Fenris wolf was daily growing larger, 
stronger and fiercer, so the gods in fear assembled to 
plan how they might dispose of him. They all agreed 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 249 

it would be wrong to kill him, so they decided to get a 
strong chain and bind him to a great rock. . But the 
wolf suspected that all was not right, so he refused to 
let them put the chain on his neck. At last, however, 
he agreed they might do so if first one of them would 
consent to put his hand in the wolf's mouth as a pledge 
of good faith on their part. None of the gods except 
Tyr would agree to this, for they well knew that when 
once the wolf found out he was tied he would close his 
mouth and bite off the hand. In this way Tyr lost his 
hand." And the people gave the name of Tui's day to 
another day of the week in honor of this brave god. 

Thus you see the German gods were brave like those 
of Greece and Rome. In Greece especially the people 
made statues of them. Do you not remember the 
golden-ivory ones of Zeus and Athena which Phidias 
made ? The Greeks also, you remember, built beautiful 
temples like the Parthenon for their gods. The Ger- 
mans did not yet know how to carve statues or how to 
build beautiful buildings. They were content to think 
of their gods as helping them fight in battle and to 
worship them under the spreading branches of some 
forest tree. Thus, "the groves were God's first tem- 
ples " for our early Teutonic ancestors. 

The time of which we are talking is more than four 
centuries after Pericles and the "Golden Age" of 
Athens. Athens was no farther distant from the Ger- 
mans than Boston is from Indianapolis, and Rome was 
nearer to them than one day's ride on a railroad train 
now. Does it not seem strange, then, to think that the 
Germans had no books, and had not yet learned to read 
and write ? They had only a very rude form of letters, 



250 SCHOOL HISTORY 

called runes. These they drew on bark and we should 
have thought they looked more like pictures than letters. 
Only the priests could read them, and they were 
thought to be magical things. None of the common 
people could either read or write. 

But you will riot think it strange after all I have told 
you, that they had many songs of brave deeds of the 
heroes and gods. These the bards sang much as Homer 
had sung to the old Greeks before they had learned to 
read and write, more than a thousand years before this 
time. One of these was the song of the Nie'be-lung'en, 
and another tells the story of Be'o-wulf. Some day 
you will read these, for when the Germans learned to 
write, they wrote them down and sung them as the 
Greeks wrote down and sung the songs of Homer. 

Many of the words we use are the same as those 
which the Germans used so long ago. This is especially 
true of those which tell of home, father, mother and 
the family life. But it is not strange that we have held 
on to these words, for as I have already told you, these 
brave Teutonic warriors were our ancestors and in keep- 
ing the words they used we have kept the remembrance 
of the purity of their home. 

In the sixth-grade work, we shall see the Teutonic 
warriors and hunters who at present seem to care for 
nothing but hunting and warring, become just as anxious 
for books and pictures, fine houses and land, as their 
neighbors, the Greeks and Romans, had been. In the 
meantime we shall see them gradually losing their 
fierce, warlike habits, their love for drinking and gam- 
bling, at the same time keeping their manly independence 
and pure family life. In order to understand how this 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 251 

came about, you must see how these Germans went south 
through the passes of the Alps, finally overcame Rome, 
and gradually took up the life, language and literature 
of the Romans. 

At one time the brave Roman armies conquered all 
others sent against them. But in later years Rome 
changed greatly. As the Romans grew luxurious the 
people no longer cared to leave their homes and plows 
to fight for their country as Cincinnatus had done. In 
their conquests they had carried to their city the 
immense wealth of foreign nations and hundreds of 
thousands of slaves. With this wealth and these slaves 
they had built splendid mansions, in which the nights 
were given to feasting and revelry, the days to sleep and 
idle sports. In the loveliest gardens in the world, revels 
took place which would have put a savage to shame. 
In splendid banquet halls, feasting went to lengths that 
would have put one more in mind of a beast than of men. 
Slaves thronged every palace and farm in large num- 
bers. Four hundred often served in one household. 
Four thousand belonged to the average estate of the 
nobles. A Roman man of wealth depended on his 
slaves for everything ; they must wash him, dress him, 
wait upon him, read to him, sing to him, bear him 
through the streets and supply his every want. The 
Romans grew to be unfit for any task which required a 
strong, robust manhood. They enjoyed so much their 
life in the theaters, the circuses, the baths, the beautiful 
villas in the country and at the seashore that they no 
longer cared for or were fit to go to the army. Instead, 
they preferred to hire soldiers to do their fighting. 

Now, the best soldiers in the world at this time, from 



252 SCHOOL HISTORY 

200 to 500 B.C., were the brave Teutons, who, as we have 
already seen, had kept the legions from conquering the 
forests beyond the Alps and Rhine. These children of 
the woods were free to do as they pleased, so it often 
happened that they hired out in large numbers to fight 
for Roman pay. It did not matter much to them, even 
if they were asked to fight their brother tribes. Thby 
earned their pay, saw the world, enjoyed fighting, and 
then often returned to fill the ears of their kinsmen with 
the wonderful story of the glories south of the Alps, 
and especially of those in Rome. 

As the Teutons became acquainted with the Romans 
they began to carry on trade with them, and soon they 
came to want many things which the Romans had. 
These traders, besides bringing their packs, brought the 
story of the riches of Rome, — the story of fertile lands, 
of boundless wealth and of men who lived in luxurious 
cities and cared more for their own enjoyment than for 
their country's welfare. 

Sometimes prisoners captured by the Romans escaped 
and returned to their German kinsmen, and they too 
brought the same story of Roman riches. ThusHtittfe- 
by little, the German warriors began to long to possess 
the wealth, the homes and the comforts which they saw 
in the sunny lands of the South. 

The Teutons were rapidly increasing in number in 
their dense forests. As long as they hunted for a liv- 
ing, they needed a large country with a sparse population. 
When the number increased they found it impossible to 
gain a living in this way ; so they must either learn to 
clear the forests or else find new hunting grounds. The 
larger and stronger tribes, in order to enlarge their hunt- 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 253 

ing grounds, forced others to move away, and soon some 
of these were crowded over the Roman frontier down 
into Italy. Once there, they saw how easy it was to 
seize the wealth of the luxurious Roman people and 
with the plunder live in ease and plenty. 

Several tribes that had once lived on the shores of 
the Baltic Sea had slowly followed the river valleys 
southward in search of new lands. They did not go 
rapidly. Perhaps they moved fifty or a hundred miles in 
the lifetime of a man ; but in this way they at length 
came to the frontier and settled on the Danube River 
and near the Black Sea. These were the Goths, and 
those that settled for a time on the Danube were now 
called the West Goths, those farther to the east, the 
East Goths. 

These people did not come as an army but came in 
whole tribes — men, women and children. They loaded 
their scanty possessions in their wagon-houses and drove 
their cattle, sheep and hogs before them, searching for 
new pastures and richer hunting grounds. This move- 
ment to the south was somewhat like that of the early 
settlers, who came from the eastern states out to Indiana 
and Ohio, for example, with their goods and families in 
wagons, and brought their cattle and hogs to begin life 
in the new West. 

When the German people started southward, they 
consisted of many separate, independent tribes, each 
ruled by its own chief ; but as time went by and they 
had common interests and dangers, they more and more 
united into large bodies, and soon several small tribes 
would unite under one leader and call him king. 

On the frontier they had no peace. Other tribes 



254 SCHOOL HISTORY 

pressed from behind, and in front the Romans lost no 
opportunity to drive them back. At first Rome was 
able to do this, for there were many German soldiers 
in her army. But at last there arose among the West 
Goths a great leader named Al'a-ric. He did not 
feel satisfied with the conditions of life on the Danube, 
so his tribe decided to move on into Italy. On they 
went again, much as before, taking with them all they 
had. What a sight it must have been to see these rude, 
half -civilized people dressed in skins, moving in their 
rude ox-carts ! There were as many men, women and 
children as would make a large city, — perhaps from 
one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand. 

At first they were driven back by the Romans ; but 
trying again, they reached the city of Rome, and after 
a siege they succeeded in capturing it. Then began 
the plundering, which lasted a whole week. They car- 
ried away many rich treasures but did not destroy the 
city. This was four hundred and ten years after the 
birth of Christ. 

The fact that they did not destroy the city shows that 
the Teutons had somewhat changed. They were no 
longer quite so rude as we saw them up in the German 
forests. In their long march and many dealings with 
the Romans they had become half Roman themselves. 
Alaric was no longer a leader of a wild race eager only 
for war, but he was king of a great tribe and conqueror 
of Rome looking for a settled home for his people. 

But they had not yet learned to live in cities, so it is 
not strange they did not care to live in the captured 
city. It is quite hard. to say what they intended to do 
next, for soon Alaric died. We must remember him 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 255 

not so much for having captured Rome, as for having 
pointed out the way southward into Italy, which so 
many others of his race were to follow. His people did 
not remain in Italy long, but wandered on until they 
crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, and there their travels 
at last came to an end. Here they built homes, and set 
up a large West Gothic state, which lasted for three 
hundred years, till it was overthrown by the Arab Moors 
in 711 a.d. 

When the Goths began to enter Italy, all the legions 
of Rome along the frontier were called together to 
drive them back. Other German tribes were not slow 
in finding out that the Goths were moving southward, 
and they too began to seek for new lands. The Van- 
dals crossed the Rhine on the ice and passing south- 
ward reached Spain before the Goths did. By the 
coming of the Goths, they were pushed over into 
Africa, where they rebuilt Carthage and made it a flour- 
ishing city. The Burgundians, following them, moved 
down into the rich Rhone valley where they set up a 
government which lasted a hundred years. Another 
large tribe, called the Franks, spread out over the country 
about the mouth of the Rhine, and over through the 
forests almost to the Pyrenees. By and by we shall hear 
more of the Franks. 

It was at this time also that the Angles, the Saxons, 
the Jutes and other Teutonic tribes crossed the English 
Channel and began to conquer the Britons in England, 
and to plant German or Teutonic ideas in that country. 
Many others of the German tribes left their native 
homes in the North, and wandered southward and west- 
ward over Europe. After a while the East Goths left 



256 SCHOOL HISTORY 

their new homes on the Black Sea, and following the 
path of Alaric, the West Goth, spread another great 
layer of Teutonic life over Italy, and finally in 476 a.d. 
took the tottering throne away from the last emperor 
who ruled at Rome. 

This moving about of the tribes caused most of them 
to give up their little local governments and moot courts, 
and soon each of them was ruled by a king. Sometimes 
the king gave some part of the governing over to his 
friends, and in return they promised to fight for him 
when called upon. This is the beginning of Feudalism, 
which we shall soon study more about. 

As the Germans spread out over all of western Europe 
they brought with them many good things which the 
conquered people readily took up, and in turn the Ger- 
mans were greatly changed by the ideas of the Roman 
people whom they had conquered. They gave new life 
and energy not only to Italy but to the whole of Europe. 
In return they received many ideas from Old Rome ; 
they learned after a while to like the books written by the 
Greeks and Romans ; they learned likewise the Roman 
laws and customs, and above all they became Christians. 

Many self-sacrificing men went out through the 
forests among them to spread the gospel, and monas- 
teries sprang up throughout the country, in which 
self-sacrificing missionaries lived and worked. These 
missionaries not only carried the Bible to the barbarians 
but also Latin books and the Latin language ; of their 
work also we shall soon learn much more. 

In all this study about the early German, or Teuton, 
we have, as I have already told you, been studying our 
immediate ancestors. We have studied no other people 



THE TEUTONIC CHILDREN OF THE WOODS 257 

in which each man loved to rule, think and act for him- 
self so much as was the case with every free man among 
our Teutonic forefathers. Many of the seeds of liberty 
which were planted and developed by these children in 
the German woods have grown and ripened till we in 
America are enjoying the fruit. How this fruit of liberty 
was ripened and finally carried to America we shall see 
as we follow the stream on as it widens in our study 
in the upper grades. 

References 

Church : The Beginnings of the Middle Ages ; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Gummere : Germanic Origins ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Oman : The Dark Ages ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 
Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; 4 vols., Lippin- 

cott & Co., Philadelphia. 
Emerton : Introduction to the Middle Ages ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Thatcher and Schwill : History of the Middle Ages ; Scribner's 

Sons, N.Y. 
Duruy : A History of the Middle Ages ; Holt & Co., Boston. 
Tacitus: G er mania ; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Bryce : The Holy Roman Empire ; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 



THE MONASTERY, AND HOW CHRISTIAN- 
ITY HELPED THE GERMANS 

The principal things we have thus far learned about 
the Teutons are that they were not always content to 
remain around the Baltic sea, in the German woods and 
on the banks of the Rhine and Danube, where we early 
met them. They were of a free and roaming disposition, 
as we have already seen when studying their early cus- 
toms and habits. So, when Rome became so corrupt 
that she could no longer defend herself, and when the 
Huns, a very fierce people who lived northeast of the 
Germans, began to attack them, one tribe of the Ger- 
mans, the Goths, began to make raids on Rome, finally 
conquering it and settling in Italy. Another tribe, the 
Vandals, marched around through Gaul and Spain, 
crossed over to Africa and conquered old Carthage. 
Still another settled in Spain, and yet others, the Saxons, 
Angles, and Jutes, crossed over to England. The tribe, 
however, which seemed to be the most important at this 
time was the Franks. They settled in France, and in 
time one of their leaders, named Charlemagne, succeeded 
in conquering a great deal of the country around him 
and in uniting many of the people into one nation. 

Nor did the Germans always remain in the barbarous 
state in which we first saw them. They had very keen 
intellects and were quick to "catch on " to new things, 
as we sometimes say. As soon as they came in contact 

258 



HOW THE MONASTERY INFLUENCED GERMANS 259 

with the Romans they took on many of their ideas and 
customs. Another thing which they early began to adopt 
and which greatly influenced them, was Christianity. 
This came to them at first through the institution called 
monasticism. So the next thing we shall try to see is 
how the monasteries grew up all over Europe, how the 
people lived in them, and how they influenced the lives 
of the people. 

Long before Christ was born, many persons, called 
hermits, living in the warm eastern countries and wish- 
ing to follow what they thought right, felt that they 
could not do so on account of the wickedness of the 
people around them ; so they left their homes and their 
friends, went into the woods or caves or some other 
lonely place, and lived by themselves. Here they could 
spend their time thinking about what was right, and 
would not be influenced by the people around them. 

Soon after Christ was born this same idea sprang up 
among the Christians. In Egypt, where the climate was 
warm and where food was easily obtained, men would 
withdraw from their friends and live in caves, or on the 
desert. Their houses were of the very rudest kind, 
made from rough logs, covered with brush, and had no 
floor and very little furniture. Sometimes they would 
even live in an unhealthy cellar or in a hole dug in the 
ground. They often had very odd ideas about religion. 
They thought that the body was the cause of all sin, and 
if they would become the best men possible, they 
thought they must " mortify the body," that is, do it all 
the harm possible, or destroy it by inches. 

Quite often they would let their hair grow very long 
and take no care of it at all. Some of them would 



260 SCHOOL HISTORY 

stand in swamps or morasses up to their necks and 
let the flies and other insects eat away the flesh of their 
faces. Some would stand in thorn trees, and in this 
way try to do the body injury. Others would stand on 
one leg until they would fall from exhaustion, or hold 
out their arms till they became palsied and fell at the 
side, withered and useless. One of these men stood for 
several years through summer and winter on top of a 
pillar sixty feet high just large enough to turn around 
on, with just enough food to keep him alive. 

But man is naturally a social being and does not like 
to live alone. Partly for this reason, and partly because 
the climate was more severe in Europe than in Egypt 
and in the East, which made it more difficult for one 
man alone to make a living, these early Christians soon 
began to give up living to themselves and began to live 
together in companies. Then it was that their houses 
began to be called monasteries. 

In a short time these monks, as they were now called, 
began to spread out over Europe and soon reached the 
barbaric Germans, scattered and roaming through the 
woods. Several of the monks would go to a place near 
a river, or to an unhealthy swamp or into some lonely 
forest, where they would settle on a piece of land given 
to them by a chief or king. The first thing they began 
to do was to clear the ground, smooth it for their 
building, and drain the swamps. The only instruments 
they had for doing this work were rude hoes, spades 
and axes. Their axes looked much like the corn knife 
used by the farmer of to-day. From this you can see 
that the work they first had to do was much the same 
as that of the first settlers in Indiana, or in any western 



HOW THE MONASTERY INFLUENCED GERMANS 26 1 

state covered with forests, and that it was very slow 
and difficult. 

After some of the ground had been cleared, the next 
thing was to build a house from the logs which they 
had cut from the land. This house was, of course, very 
rude, with, its cracks filled with sticks and mud, with its 
roof made of boards split from logs, and its floor of 
roughly hewn slabs. The monasteries usually had at 
first three rooms. One of these was a writing room, 
another the sleeping room, and the third a place of 
worship. 

As time went on, rules for governing the monasteries 
were formed. The first great man who wrote out a 
code of rules for them was St. Benedict. According 
to these, a monk must take three vows : One of poverty, 
which meant that he gave up all his property on be- 
coming a monk and that he would never own anything 
afterward. Another chastity, which meant that he 
would never marry. The third of obedience, which 
meant that they would always place themselves under 
complete control of the rulers of the monastery. 

The chief officer controlling the monastery was called 
the abbot, who obtained his place by election. To help 
him oversee the work of the monastery he had officers 
under him. The first of these was the prior, who con- 
trolled subordinate officers and acted in the place of the 
abbot when he was away. Then came the sub-prior, 
who helped the prior. The deans had charge of the 
reports of the doings of the monasteries. The cellarer 
looked after the provisions and clothing. The econo- 
mus attended to the church, while the procurator saw 
that all accounts were kept in the right way. 



262 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Another very important provision in their rules was 
that they were not to abuse their bodies as the monks 
had done in the East, and that they were not to waste 
their time in idleness. At first the thing which occu- 
pied most of their time, as already said, was clearing 
the forest and draining the swamps. They worked 
slowly but faithfully at this, until what was once the 
most dreary waste became a land waving with crops and 
covered with flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle 
and droves of hogs. 

The amount of their land gradually increased, because 
as men became monks they would give their land to 
the monastery, and other men who admired the good 
qualities of the monks would give them vast tracts of 
land also. Thus it came about that after a while the 
monasteries became very wealthy. Of course as they 
grew more wealthy they made their buildings better, 
the log ones gradually giving way to those of greater 
comfort and beauty. 

At the time when monasticism reached its greatest 
power, say from a thousand to fifteen hundred a.d., 
each monastery had four or five extensive buildings. 
One of these was the church. This was always built 
in the form of a cross with the long part of it run- 
ning east and west. The longer portion of this was 
called the nave and the shorter portion the choir. The 
choir was used as a place of worship by the monks, 
while the nave could be used at any time by any one 
else who wished to come there for worship. A large 
fine door was always in the west end of the nave. 

The portion of the church which ran crosswise, or the 
arms of the cross, was called the transept. In one end 



HOW THE MONASTERY INFLUENCED GERMANS 263 

of this were kept the relics of the dead monks and saints 
of the church, such as parts of their clothing, their pens, 
staffs, and often some of their bones. 

These churches grew to be as fine as money could 
make them, and many masons and artists were almost 
always working on them trying to make them more 
beautiful both without and within. In them were placed 
rows of beautiful pillars which supported the roof. In 
many parts of the church were statues of Christ, of the 
Virgin Mary and of the saints. The windows were 
made of beautiful stained glass of many different pat- 
terns and designs, and in many places there were beau- 
tiful curtains made from the most expensive cloth. 
The vessels used in the church service after the monas- 
teries became wealthy were almost always made of gold 
and silver. 

The church was built on the north side of a plot of 
ground not quite as large as the average public square 
in one of our cities. Generally on the east of this plot 
(the plot was called the garth or cloister garth) was the 
chapter house, which, along with the other buildings, 
was never as fine as the church. In it was a large bare 
room, with benches upon which the monks sat when 
they came to discuss matters concerning the monastery 
and to have their duties for each day assigned to them 
by the prior or other officer. 

On the south side of the garth was the refectory, in 
which all the cooking was done. Here we might have 
seen at the dining hours a long, narrow table with stools 
at its sides, with the monks eating their meals in silence. 
At one end of this room was a raised place or kind of 
platform in the floor, upon which some monk would 



264 SCHOOL HISTORY 

stand and read from the Bible in Latin before each 
meal. In f the room where the cooking was done they 
had huge fireplaces. Iron rods were fixed in these so 
that kettles could be hung on them. In these they 
cooked their vegetables. They roasted fowls and meat 
by hanging them over the fire, and baked their coarse 
bread by putting it in the ashes. 

The other building on the south of the garth was the 
dormitory, or sleeping room. This was usually divided 
into small rooms, or cells, each occupied by a single 
monk. In this little room he had a rude bed made by 
putting rough boards on benches, and then covering the 
boards with furs, leaves and moss. He also had a chair 
without arms, and a stool upon which to kneel when he 
prayed. On the east side of the garth was a building 
for entertaining strangers and a place for the sick. 
Under these buildings were cellars for storing away a 
part of their crops of grains, vegetables and fruits for 
food. 

Going all around the four sides of the garth and 
extending from the inner wall of all the buildings just 
named, was something like a porch, the roof of which 
was supported by beautiful columns. This was called 
the cloister. It was here that the monks spent a great 
deal of their time in thinking, taking exercise, especially 
in rainy weather, and talking to others. In the garth 
were many beautiful flowers, and a pretty fountain in 
the center to keep them fresh. This is about the typi- 
cal monastery, and something of its life within, which 
we would have seen there could we have traveled over 
western Europe between five hundred to one thousand 
years after Christ, when the monks were industrious, 



HOW THE MONASTERY INFLUENCED GERMANS 265 

and were making heroic sacrifices to teach the German 
barbarians the truths of Christianity. 

If a man wished to become a monk, he was put on 
trial for two years, one of which was spent in the mo- 
nastic school. If at the end of that time he still wished 
to continue the life, he was required to take certain vows. 
One of them was a vow of stability. By this vow he 
promised never to leave the monastery. Then came 
the vows which I have mentioned before — chastity, 
obedience and poverty. After certain very solemn 
ceremonies he was given the dress of the monk. 

This consisted of the frock, which was a sort of gown 
gathered around the neck and falling loosely to the feet. 
It had large loose sleeves. Attached to the back of 
this was a hood, which could be drawn over the head if 
he so desired. He had a belt to bind the robe to the 
body, and sandals which were bound on the feet with 
straps. The clothing was usually made from black 
material, which gave one class the name of black monks. 
While walking around and about the buildings it was 
their custom to bow their heads; and when outside the 
buildings they carried a long cane. This tended to 
make them look like old men. 

But I wish to tell you still more of the life which went 
on in and around the monastery, since, as I already said, 
it was very far from being a place of idleness. We would 
naturally expect them to employ much of their time at 
worship, and so they did, since they had no less than 
seven services a day. Six of these were in the daytime 
and one at midnight. All those who could possibly do 
so were required to be at all of these services. 

Some of the monks had to take care of the flowers in 



266 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the garth. Some did the cooking, and each one was re- 
quired to take care of his own room. They also had 
workshops. In some of these, beautiful ornaments for 
the church were made, while in others were made saddles, 
swords and shields, for the monks often had to go into 
the army and fight. There were tanners to make leather, 
shoemakers to make shoes, weavers who wove cloth, and 
tailors who made clothing. There were blacksmiths 
who made spades, hoes, rakes, axes and plows for use 
on the farm. 

As I have already told you, some cleared the forests 
and drained the swamps, others tended the crops, and 
still others watched the flocks. From all this you see it 
was not a place of idleness. In fact it was a little town 
within itself and was something like a country town in 
which all the farmers would live in the village, and yet 
own and cultivate all the land for miles around. They 
also had a school here, so that parents living in the 
country and towns around who wished might send their 
boys to it. Of course this required teachers, who were 
always monks. 

The study most emphasized in these schools was 
Latin. Every one had to learn to read and write it. 
Besides this they had two other courses. One was called 
the trivium, and included grammar, rhetoric and logic. 
The other was the quadrivium, and included arithmetic, 
geometry, astronomy and music. This seems as if it 
were a very good course, but the fact was that the 
teachers knew very little about most of the subjects. 
They taught the Latin well, so that they might use it 
in their church service, but most of the other teaching 
was poor. They did not teach geography or history in 



HOW THE MONASTERY INFLUENCED GERMANS 267 

these schools, and they were very ignorant about botany, 
chemistry, astronomy and the like. 

They all enjoyed hunting and going to war. At first 
both were considered improper for the monks, but after 
they grew less devoted to religion they spent much of 
their time in these things. 

One thing which they are to be praised very much 
for, was their treatment of strangers. If a man travel- 
ing through the forest got lost or wished some place to 
stay all night (for at that time there were no hotels as 
there are now for one to stop at), he was always wel- 
comed by the monks. They also had a hospital in 
which they took care of the sick. This was a thousand 
years and more before ether was discovered which 
deadens pain when surgery is performed, and in fact 
the doctors of that day knew very little about surgery. 
If it was necessary to perform an operation, they 
strapped the patient fast to something solid, for ex- 
ample, a bench or table, then did the work, and then 
seared the wound with a hot iron in order to stop it from 
bleeding. Their medicines were chiefly roots and herbs. 
They also thought that a sick person by touching sacred 
relics might be healed, often immediately. Partly for this 
reason the desire for sacred relics became so great that 
in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries thou- 
sands of people marched in a sort of army back to 
Jerusalem to get something which Christ or one of his 
disciples had worn, or had been in some way associated 
with. This helped to bring about the Crusades, which 
we will study next year. 

Another occupation which took a great deal of the 
time of some of the monks was writing. Nearly every 



268 SCHOOL HISTORY 

monastery had a library — generally not larger than five 
hundred books ; of course these were always written, 
since in that day they had no printing presses. What 
books do you suppose they wrote, or rather copied, from 
century to century ? Since it is religion in which they 
were most interested, we would naturally expect them to 
take great interest in the Bible ; and since they were con- 
cerned to some degree with education, we might expect 
them to take some interest in the writings of old Greece 
and Rome. This was the case. They made copy after 
copy of the Bible and some of the Greek and Roman 
writings and placed them in their libraries. 

The writing was always done on parchment, vellum, or 
papyrus. Parchment was made from the skin of sheep 
and goats. The skin was first put in lime or strong 
ashes to remove the hair. Then it was rubbed with a 
smooth pumice stone to polish it. When it was dry, it 
made a smooth, hard surface which could easily be 
written upon. The vellum, which was a fine grade of 
parchment, was made in the same manner from the skin 
of calves. The papyrus paper you have learned about 
already in the second and third grades. They wrote 
with a very rude pen made from the feather of a goose. 
Their ink was made of vinegar, lamp black and gum, 
and did not bite into the paper so much as our ink does 
now, hence it was rather easier to erase it. It was of 
many colors — red, yellow, blue, purple and the color of 
silver. The writing was often so heavy that it was very 
hard to read and made the page look as if it were almost 
black. To help this somewhat, they frequently wrote 
on a page with different colors of ink. The first letter 
of a paragraph would often be made very large and in 



HOW THE MONASTERY INFLUENCED GERMANS 269 

many colors, so that it looked very beautiful. Sometimes 
different-colored letters would be scattered over the 
page, so that the page would not look so black. 

If we could have visited one of these writing rooms, we 
would have seen groups of five or six men, each seated 
in different parts of the room. One of the group 
would be reading while the others were copying what he 
read. Some of those who copied were very careful, but 
others were just as careless. They would sometimes 
omit words, sometimes write the wrong word, often 
misspell words, and never punctuate what they wrote, 
for at that time punctuation marks were not used in 
writing. From these causes it came about that the 
various copies which they made of any book, the Bible 
for example, would not be exactly alike, and this caused 
great scholars at the time of the Renascence in the 
fifteenth century and of the Reformation in the sixteenth 
to spend much time comparing the various copies of the 
Greek and Latin authors and of authors of the Bible, 
to see exactly what the original writers wrote and meant. 

The books we should have seen there would not have 
looked much like ours. The first ones were made by 
fastening many pieces of parchment together lengthwise, 
so as to make a long strip. This could then be rolled 
and unrolled by attaching a stick to each end. After 
awhile they began cutting their parchment into pieces 
and folding them, so that they would look much like two 
sheets of letter cap paper. They then put many of these 
folded pieces together, and placed a piece of board of the 
right size on either side, and bound them together. 

In a short time they began to cover these wooden 
backs with pictures or beautiful cloth. They also 



270 SCHOOL HISTORY 

drove short nails in the lids, so that when the book was 
laid down the ornamental back would not be soiled by 
rubbing against whatever it was placed on. Many of 
the books had backs made of boards two inches thick. 
This made them very heavy and awkward ; so handles 
were placed on them to make it easier to hold them 
while reading, or in some cases they were placed on 
stands, as we sometimes do with heavy books like our 
large dictionaries*. 

After a while the monks largely lost interest in copy- 
ing the Bible and the Greek and Roman writers, and 
spent much of their time in writing histories of their 
monasteries and the sayings of their great men. Some 
of the old copies of the Bible, of Homer's poems and the 
like, were put away in a closet, or garret, or cellar, and 
after many years became almost covered up with dust. 
Still, as more and more monasteries were founded, there 
was greater demand for paper for making copies of 
Bibles, for writing monastic histories, keeping accounts 
of their daily proceedings, and other like things. 

About the middle of the Middle Ages, say about 1000, 
papyrus paper grew to be very scarce, and finally dis- 
appeared altogether. It then became necessary to write 
wholly on parchment or vellum. These at best were not 
plentiful, and when papyrus disappeared, they were 
entirely too scarce to furnish people enough to write 
upon ; the monks began therefore quite largely to write 
on both sides of their manuscripts. This still not being 
sufficient, they began erasing the writing of the old 
parchment and using it a second time, often writing 
a sermon upon it, or giving an account of some unimpor- 
tant matter, as the death of a cow, or the appearance of 



HOW THE MONASTERY INFLUENCED GERMANS 271 

a comet — a matter not a hundredth part as important 
as the poem or Gospel which had been erased for the 
sake of the parchment. 

About a hundred years before the discovery of Amer- 
ica, the Teutons of western Europe began to take great 
interest in the Bible and the poems of Greece and 
Rome. But when they began to search for copies of 
these, they found there were no original copies anywhere 
to be found, and that the only ones which were to be 
found were copies which had been copied from other 
copies, and even these had sometimes been made in the 
most careless manner. Many times they could find 
only a small part of a Gospel or a poem. Very often 
there could be seen beneath the upper writing on some 
manuscripts, traces of the original, which the monk had 
not fully scrubbed out with his pumice stone. We can 
scarcely realize what a great grief it was to the scholars 
when they came to desire this original writing, to find 
it frequently destroyed. Had this not been done, we 
should now probably know more about the Bible, about 
the life of Jesus and the Apostles, and about the life 
and literature of Greece and Rome, than we shall now 
ever know. 

Thus we have seen something of monasticism as it 
arose and grew to its full strength ; but just as we saw 
the Romans grow to be strong, then gradually become 
wealthy, and in grasping for the world lose their whole 
empire, so the monasteries grew strong in worldly 
things, but weak in spiritual life. 

As they grew wealthy they often became less devoted 
to the true worship of God, and instead of being places 
for developing a higher life of the soul, they often be- 



272 SCHOOL HISTORY 

came places for indulging the pleasures and vices of 
the body. Yet with all these faults, the monks in the 
dark ages in which they lived did a vast amount of good, 
and it is for the good that they did, and not for the evil, 
that we should chiefly remember them. What were 
some of the important things they did whose good 
influence reaches down to after times and even to the 
present day ? 

In the first place, they introduced among the Euro- 
peans better ways of cultivating the land and of raising 
crops. They were in fact the pioneers, who drained 
the swamps, and cleared the woods so that our early 
Teutonic ancestors could get a start in civilization. 

In the second place, by introducing Christianity among 
the barbarians their lives were greatly softened, and their 
chief ideals of hunting, fishing and warring were gradu- 
ally changed to more peaceful pursuits and to the idea 
of a common brotherhood of man. 

In the third place, by means of a monastic school the 
monks hung up, as it were, a lantern, which dimly shed 
its light through the dark forests of that ignorant time. 
The monastery and the life which grew up around it 
was the bridge, so to speak, over which the life which 
had grown up in Judea, Greece and Rome was carried 
northward over the Alps, and gradually given out to 
western Europe as the people became educated enough 
to understand it. The monastery then was, in a great 
degree, the church, the school, the farm, the manufac- 
tory, and to a considerable degree the government, of 
the Middle Ages. In that rough and barbaric time 
such a free school system as we now have, or such free 
religious ideas as we enjoy to-day, were impossible. 



HOW THE MONASTERY INFLUENCED GERMANS 273 

We must not, therefore, blame the monk that he did not 
set these free ideas up and practice them as we do at 
the present time. If he had not patiently carried down 
through those dark times the learning which he did, and 
given it to others who came after him, it would be im- 
possible for us to have the opportunities for education 
and free religious thought which we now enjoy. 

We must not, then, judge the monk principally by 
some strange things which he did in the early life of 
monasticism, such as wearing his hair long or wasting 
his life on top of a pillar; or by the idle and wicked 
lives which many led in the later centuries, but by his 
earnest, patient, industrious life when the monastery 
was the brightest spot in a dark forest and the chief 
means of leading the ignorant man of the Middle Ages 
up to a stage where, by other means, he could climb to 
a higher view and afterwhile catch in all its fullness the 
idea that the greatest servant of God is he who is the 
truest servant of his fellow men ; and that, therefore, 
the truest service to God does not come from with- 
drawing from the sin, sorrow and suffering of society, 
but from staying in society and manfully struggling to 
lift it to greater purity and nobler life. 

References 

Emerton : Introduction to the Middle Ages ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Thatcher and Schwill : Europe in the Middle Ages; Scribner's 

Sons, N.Y. 
Duruy : History of the Middle Ages ; Holt & Co., N.Y. 
Lacroix : Science and Literature of the Middle Ages ; AppletoD 

& Co., N.Y. 
Lacroix: Manners and Customs of the Middle Ages; Appleton 

& Co., N.Y. 



274 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Lacroix : Military and Religious Life of the Middle Ages ; Apple- 
ton & Co. N. Y. 

Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; 
Ginn & Company, Boston. 

Montalembert : Monks of the West ; 6 vols ; Longmans, Green 
& Co., N.Y. 

Sabatier : Life of St. Francis of Assisi; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

De Vinne: Invention of Printing; Hart & Co., N.Y. 

Putnam: Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages; 2 vols.; 
Putnam's Sons, N.Y. 

Study articles on Monasticism, Printing, Monasteries and Abbeys 
in good cyclopedias. 

Study the lives of Simeon Stylites, St. Benedict, Francis of Assisi, 
St. Dominic, and the Order of Carmelite Monks. 



THE CASTLE, AND HOW FEUDALISM SOFT- 
ENED AND REFINED THE LIFE OF THE 
TEUTON 

During the same time that the monastery was grow- 
ing up, — that is, from the sixth to the thirteenth cen- 
turies, — there arose in Europe a special form of society 
and government called Feudalism. Although it began 
soon after the scattering of the Teutons over western 
Europe, it did not read) its highest development till the 
twelfth century. 

In the German forests the early Teutons owned no land, 
for they were only hunters and warriors. But when they 
crossed over into Gaul they found choice farms, cultivated 
vineyards, orchards loaded with fruits, and large fields 
of ripening grain. They soon formed a taste for these 
things, and as they were conquerors looking for booty 
and plunder, they took away from the people a large por- 
tion — sometimes a third or a half — of the choicest lands. 

It was a custom among- the Teutonic chiefs while 
they still lived in the great woods, to reward faithful 
companions who fought well by giving them a horse, or 
a fine spear, or a shield, for these were to them the 
most valuable gifts that could be made. As the Teu- 
tons became more settled, their tastes considerably 
changed. Land became the most valuable thing for 
them, so the chief gave them land instead of horses and 
implements of war. In this way they gradually became 

275 



276 SCHOOL HISTORY 

owners of farms and farmers. We have already seen 
how the Franks, from their small possessions lying about 
the mouth of the Rhine spread out over the country to 
the west, east and south, conquering it down almost as 
far as the Pyrenees Mountains. For several centuries 
there were many divisions among these fierce warriors. 
Often there were several persons, each of whom claimed 
the right to be king and tried to obtain the kingship by 
force. This led to constant war and to divisions of the 
people into hostile parties. 

Occasionally a strong and powerful leader arose 
among them. The most noted of these was Charles 
the Great, or, as we usually call him, Charlemagne. 
During his long reign of forty-six years (768-814 a.d.) 
he extended the country of the Franks until it embraced 
most of what is now included in the states of Holland, 
Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria and 
Italy, and on Christmas Day in 800 a.d. he was even 
crowned Emperor of Rome. 

He was the most powerful ruler of the Middle Ages, 
as he must have been to control so large a state, but 
soon after his death, 814 a.d., strife again began. The 
state which he had set up soon fell to pieces. Many 
rival leaders struggled for power, and whenever one 
leader overcame an enemy he took his lands from him 
and tried to establish his power over him as king. 

It was always to the interest of the struggling king 
to have these lands in the hands of his friends, so he 
gave to many of his most faithful followers large tracts 
which they might use and rule as long as they would 
fight for him whenever he called upon them. That is, 
he rented the land to them, not as a farmer would now 



HOW THE CASTLE REFINED THE TEUTON 2JJ 

rent a farm in the United States for money or a share 
of the grain, but for military service. The land which 
the king gave out in this way was called a fief, or a 
feud, and the man who received it was called a vassal. 
This method of giving it, together with the relation of 
the king to the vassal, was called the Feudal System. 

The ceremony of making a man a vassal was im- 
pressive and interesting. The man knelt with his 
head uncovered and his hands placed in those of his 
future lord and solemnly promised to be from that time 
on his man, to serve him faithfully, even if it became 
necessary to give his life for him. This promise was 
then sealed with a kiss, and the lord, to show that he 
was giving the land to the vassal, gave him a clod or 
a stick, or if it happened that he was giving a whole 
province, he gave him a flag. 

It was the vassal's duty to go with his lord on 
military expeditions whenever he was asked to do so. 
He was to defend him in battle ; if his lord was thrown 
from his horse, or if the horse was killed, it was the 
vassal's duty to give him his own instead; if the lord 
was taken prisoner, the vassal must offer to become 
the hostage for his lord's release. 

Oftentimes, too, he must give money to help carry 
on an expedition ; at other times he must give money 
to help support the lord's family ; when the lord's 
oldest son became a knight, he must pay a certain 
sum ; he must do the same when the lord's eldest 
daughter was married. In return for this, the lord 
must give the vassal advice when he asks for it and 
must protect him from his enemies at all. times. In 
these wild, rough times, say from 500 to 1200, it was 



2?8 SCHOOL HISTORY 

no small task to give one protection ; so if the lord 
did his duty toward his vassals, the advantages were 
not all on one side. 

The fiefs given out by the king were generally very 
large, and the vassals receiving them could grant smaller 
parts to other persons, who would in turn become vassals 
to them. In this way each of the nobles could himself 
command quite an army of followers. 

At that time no one's property or life was safe, and 
the king very often could not protect the people. In 
this case the holders of small farms who owned them 
entirely, just as farmers do now in the United States, 
must look to some one else for protection. To secure 
this they often gave their land to some noble and 
became his vassal. Thus the nobles greatly enlarged 
their already large fiefs, and it was not long until all 
the land came into the feudal estates. 

Even the monasteries which owned large tracts of land, 
in order to gain this protection were forced to become 
vassals of some powerful noble, as well as to furnish 
soldiers for the noble's army. But they, too, had many 
vassals who gained the protection which the monasteries 
could give. 

On many of the farms were laborers called serfs. 
These remained on the land, no matter who owned 
it, and were bought and sold with it just as if they 
were so many trees or houses. 

The nobles or feudal lords were like so many little 
kings. They governed all their vassals, made the 
laws for them, punished them when they did wrong, 
had the right to make war on other feudal lords, 
could coin money, tax outsiders who wished to trade 



HOW THE CASTLE REFINED THE TEUTON 279 

in their possessions, and do many other things which 
a king usually does. 

From this you see little power was left to the king. 
There was no strong central government such as we saw 
in Rome, or such as there is at present in the United 
States. Each great feudal farm was a kind of state 
in itself. It was just as if in our state there were a 
governor who gave to his friends each a county, which 
they could rule as they pleased just so long as they 
were willing to help him fight when he called upon them 
and gave him money when he asked for it. 

As there grew to be many of these feudal lords 
with great farms, they often made war upon one an- 
other, hoping to be able to take away the land from 
their neighbors and so enlarge their own fiefs. For this 
reason each lord had to protect himself (for there was 
no standing army to protect the whole country then as we 
have now), so he built a strong castle in which to live. 

The castle was placed on top of a high, rocky cliff 
near some river ; for there it would be more secure 
than in any other place. Such a place could not only 
be defended easily, but from its towers the country 
for miles around could be seen ; and if an enemy ap- 
proached, it could be easily known, and preparation 
made for defense. In building the castle, great walls 
of stone were built up — sometimes more than fifty 
feet high. These were made very thick — fully ten 
feet in some cases — and inclosed a large court. On 
top of the walls were battlements, behind which men 
protected themselves while they drove away an attack ; 
and at convenient places huge towers rose much higher 
than the walls. On top of the walls at all times, sum- 



280 SCHOOL HISTORY 

mer and winter, in all kinds of weather, watchmen 
tramped and kept a sharp lookout for enemies. Even 
visitors did not dare to come too near unannounced or 
they might be hit by the watchman's arrow. Let the 
watchman but sound his trumpet, and there would be 
hurried mounting in the castle courtyard, and brave 
knights would rush forth eager for a conflict. 

The court of the castle often contained several acres. 
Here were the mills which ground the grain for the 
use of the lord and his family ; ovens in which 
the bread was baked ; wine presses which furnished 
the wine ; smithies in which the horses were shod ; 
shops where the wagons were made ; looms, on which 
the cloth was woven. It was indeed a hive of indus- 
try ; the huddled buildings on top and at the foot of the 
hill were frequently the beginnings of a city. Country 
life such as we have now was hardly possible on account 
of the poor government of the time ; people in those, 
days had to live under the protection either of the 
monastery or of the castle. They might go out to 
look after the farming through the day, but safety 
forced them to come back for the night. In the 
morning the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were 
driven out to the pastures, but night saw them returned 
to the court. 

In the courtyard, too, were storehouses for the grain, 
stables for the horses, kennels for the fine dogs used 
in hunting, various houses for the servants, a church, 
and sometimes, but not often, a schoolhouse. 

A great ditch, or moat, not less than twelve feet deep 
and twenty-four feet wide, and generally much wider 
and deeper, completely surrounded the outside of the 



HOW THE CASTLE REFINED THE TEUTON • 28 1 

castle wall. If a river was near, the ditch was filled with 
water, thus making the castle stand upon a little island. 
Only one gateway passed through the walls, and on 
each side of it was a huge tower. To reach the gate 
one had to cross the moat upon a bridge. One end 
of this bridge was fastened by hinges to the castle 
towers, while chains were fastened to the other end ; and 
by means of a windlass, placed in the towers, the bridge 
could be drawn up against the building, thus cutting 
off passage across the moat and closing up the gateway 
in the castle wall. This is why the bridge was called a 
drawbridge. 

In the gateway also was a heavy, grated, iron gate 
called the portcullis. This did not open as our farm 
gates do, but had ropes and huge weights fastened to 
it. These weights raised and lowered it in a groove in 
the walls just as our windows are raised and lowered. 

Near the center of the court, or at one corner of it, 
stood the great donjon keep — the strongest part of 
the castle. Its walls were higher than those of the 
court, — sometimes towering up to two hundred feet. 
On these, also, were still higher towers. Over the tallest 
of these towers fluttered the feudal lord's rectangular 
flag. Through the walls, small, narrow windows let in 
the light and air. Iron bars, something like those we 
have in our jail windows, were placed before them, to 
keep out the stealthy assassin. There was yet no window 
glass, so wooden shutters kept out the rain. 

This strong place was really the fort of the castle. It 
was the last storehouse for provisions and arms. Under 
it was the great well which supplied the water. Here 
the soldiers retreated, if the court were lost, for the final 



282 SCHOOL HISTORY 

struggle. Here was the last hope. If this fell, all was 
lost and the defenders need expect no mercy. 

Under the donjon keep also were the prisons — great 
dungeons from which the keep got its name. These 
were dark, damp and cold. Here many a vassal, if 
he chanced to anger his lord, died amid the filth and 
slime. Here many a serf was starved like a dog. Here 
were kept the instruments of torture, as cruel as that 
rude age could invent. One of the most cruel was an 
iron wheel set with sharp, iron teeth. On this pris- 
oners were tied and beaten until death relieved the 
pain. Here, too, were knee clamps to crush the knees, 
great iron boots to crush the feet, and thumb screws 
for crushing the thumbs. 

The first floor of the keep was the soldiers' quarters, 
wherein one hundred could easily be accommodated. 
Here were kept the arms to be used in defending the 
keep when the final desperate struggle should begin. • 

On the second floor was the great hall. On its walls 
hung the trophies of many a chase and many a fight. 
The great antlers of the stag, the fierce tusks of the 
boar, the hide of the bear, the horns of the bull, all had 
a place there, and around each gathered a story. Pen- 
nons and flags taken in battle, armor and weapons 
taken in many a fierce conflict, formed a glittering 
array and told of warlike deeds and brave ancestors. 

In this great hall the nobler vassals feasted with 
their lord and promised to aid and serve him. Here 
the troubadour sang of lovers true and maidens fair. 
Here the merry children made the stony walls ring with 
laughter and shouts of mock tournaments. Here the 
soldier-guest, with many a scar, rested and enjoyed the 



HOW THE CASTLE REFINED THE TEUTON 283 

hospitality of the castle and told the story of his battles 
over again. Here, sometimes, the monk prayed and 
taught. Here the Christmas revels and feast called 
forth the roasting of the boar's head, the stately dance 
and the mirthful song. Here the marriage train and 
wedding feast had their time and place. Here, too, 
the funeral dirge echoed along the lofty walls, for in 
spite of life's joys there is no place where death does 
not come, even though it be amid castle splendor. 

It was on the third floor that the lord and his family 
lived and slept. Secret stairways, known to but few, 
led up to it. Within the castle conveniences were few. 
Tables, chairs, beds, silver or pewter plates, cups, knives 
and spoons were found, but no forks ; long wax candles 
lighted the dark rooms. In building the castles, they 
learned to leave holes through the walls for the escape 
of the smoke instead of through the roof, and thus they 
invented the chimney. On the great open fireplaces, 
the logs burned and cracked while the family gathered 
round. The baths were not forgotten, but marble tubs, 
such as we found in Greece and Rome were unknown in 
the castle of the Middle Ages. In the basement of the 
keep were strong, stone troughs and wooden tanks, filled 
from the moat, and in these the household delighted. 

The castle floor was usually of brick and was covered 
with rushes or straw, and later with rugs made from the 
skins of wild animals. Often the walls were covered 
with tapestries woven by the ladies of the household. 
These pictured scenes from history, from the romantic 
tales of the troubadours, or from the lives of the saints. 

The lord of the castle knew little of refinement or 
culture. He delighted to spend his time in hunting, in 



284 SCHOOL HISTORY 

fighting, or in. feasting. He was as brave as a lion, but 
generally very illiterate. Rarely could he read or write, 
and seldom were books to be found in his home. If 
there was an occasional book, it was not such as we 
have, for there was as yet no printing. If written man- 
uscripts were to be found, the chances were that no one 
but the priest could read them, and he often not very 
well. 

If such rude manners was the condition of the noble, 
what must have been that of the common man ? Down 
at the foot of the castle hill, just outside the wall, stood 
their homes, huddled together into a small town. Poor 
huts they were, without any conveniences. Year in and 
year out they worked for their master, and into their 
lives came little knowledge and little hope. In their 
midst stood the little church, where they found their only 
help to higher things. 

Whatever there was of splendor was in the castle. 
There could have been nothing but gloom in the hut. 
No reward was paid for labor. Fighting was the only 
worthy occupation in the eyes of the noble. The serf 
must work not only to maintain his own miserable life 
and that of his family, but to furnish food for the lord 
and his family as well. He must be content to obey 
his master. He must cut wood, draw water, clean 
stables, raise the crops and harvest the grain. If he 
failed to do this, the dungeon was his lot. 

Probably the most interesting person in the whole 
feudal society was the knight. He differed from the 
ordinary vassal in that he was of noble birth and always 
fought on horseback. He was truthful, brave and 
courteous. With his coming, many of the rude and 



HOW THE CASTLE REFINED THE TEUTON 285 

barbarous customs of the rough times passed away 
and culture slowly took their place. Already, in early 
times, in the great forest, the Teuton loved a contest 
with arms and paid great respect to women. There, 
likewise, bravery and respect for women were the two 
great virtues of the knight. In an age when violence 
was frequent, the weak and oppressed needed a de- 
fender. The chivalrous knight became their champion. 

Before one could become a knight he must spend years 
in preparation. At seven he was called a page and 
was taught obedience, courtesy, truthfulness, respect for 
women and reverence for the church. He attended the 
lord and his lady in the castle. He prepared the table 
for the meals in the great hall and waited on the guests 
while they ate. He ran errands for his master and mis- 
tress. He must be polite and courteous to the guests of 
the castle. He was taught how to hunt, how to ride 
and how to pray, and occasionally how to read. He 
studied music and chess and committed to memory his 
long list of Latin rules of etiquette. He accompanied 
his lady on the hawking trips, sending and calling back 
the hawks. But above all he imitated the conduct of 
the knights about him. 

At fourteen he became an esquire. Now he attended 
his lord in battle, carrying his weapons, holding his 
horse, and in case he was badly needed, he joined in the 
fight. At the castle he received visitors and attended to 
their comforts. He was taught the use of weapons and 
became a skilled horseman, for he looked forward to the 
day when he was to become a knight. 

At twenty-one his preparation ended, and if he was 
thought worthy he might receive the honor of knighthood. 



286 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Often he need not wait so long as that ; for if, as an 
esquire, he did some brave deed for his lord on the 
battlefield, he was at once made a knight for his reward. 
The day before the final ceremony the candidate purified 
himself by taking a bath. Then he fasted for twenty- 
four hours. All night long he prayed in the church by 
himself that he might thus become free from sin. What 
solemn hours those must have been for him, all alone 
at midnight with only the darkness and the dim light of 
the candles about him. When morning came, he went 
to mass in the church. After that, either in the church 
or at the castle, a noble' train of lords, ladies and 
knights assembled to see him knighted. The priest 
blessed the sword and gave it to him. Golden spurs 
were buckled on his feet. He was covered from head to 
foot with a coat of mail made from plates of steel which 
no lance or sword could penetrate. A plumed helmet was 
placed on his head. Then the lord of the castle said, " I 
make thee a knight. Be valiant, bold and loyal." At 
the same time he tapped him three times on the shoulder 
with a sword, and he was no longer an esquire. Now he 
longed to go forth with steel-pointed lance and metal 
shield to show his valor on the field of battle or in de- 
fense of his lady. 

The organization or society of knighthood which I 
have just told you about was called chivalry. It has been 
called the "flower of the Feudal System." It changed 
and softened the rude manners of this very rough and 
selfish age. As good conduct and Christianity go hand 
in hand, chivalry may be said to have gotten much from 
the church ; and in turn, since the knight took an oath 
to defend the church, chivalry came to be its valiant 



HOW THE CASTLE REFINED THE TEUTON 287 

defender. Next year when we study the Crusades, we 
shall see how the knight left his home to go on the long 
and dangerous journey to the Holy Land for the pur- 
pose of taking it from the Mohammedan Turks and re- 
storing it to Christian hands. 

At home the knights delighted in contests where 
their skill and valor could be shown in the presence of 
the ladies they loved. Of these contests the tourna- 
ment easily came first in importance. The rich trap- 
pings of the horses, the brilliant clothing worn by the 
assembled nobles and their attending train made a spec- 
tacle of rare beauty, splendor and gayety. Heralds, 
sent out by the lord far and wide over his own dominions 
and to the neighboring castles, announced the contest. 
Brave knights came from distant lands to match their 
skill with others, and, what was much more, to win the 
praise and favor of their lady-loves. 

Like the Olympic games of Greece, the tournament 
was a contest of honor, and the conditions of entrance 
were carefully guarded. No knight who had at any time 
been guilty of crime, or had offended a lady, or had 
violated his word, or had taken an unfair advantage of 
his enemy in battle could enter, for purity, honor, truth- 
fulness and fair-dealing were the highest marks of 
chivalry and the gentleman. 

The field of combat in the tournament was prepared 
in front of the castle. A level space was marked off 
by railing or by ropes and surrounded by galleries, 
decorated with banners, tapestries and the emblems of 
the contending knights. The contest itself was a mimic 
battle, and took place on horseback. When the time 
arrived for it to begin, heralds announced the rules, and 



288 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the knights took their places. At a given signal the 
opposing parties of knights with poised lances dashed 
fiercely at each other. Victory belonged to those who 
unhorsed their antagonists or kept off and broke, ac- 
cording to the rules, the greatest number of lances. 

There were always prizes for the victors, such as 
jewels, gifts of armor, or horses decked with knightly 
trappings ; but to the knight more dear than all else 
was the praise and favor which he was sure to win from 
his lady-love. These contests were rough and danger- 
ous. It was not an unusual thing for the bravest to 
be carried dead from the field. The killing of King 
Henry II of France, 1559 a.d., in one of these contests 
went far toward doing away with them. 

But not all of the knightly contests were mimic 
battles like the tournament. Through the castle gates 
trains of knights with lances set, spurs on heel, and 
plumes on helmet crest, rode forth to real battle. 
Maybe some neighboring lord had given offense by act 
or word ; or maybe it was only love of plunder that 
called forth the expedition. 

Anxious hearts in the castle awaited the return. 
Maybe it brought captured banners, booty and spoils of 
war, or perhaps a rival chief in chains, or maybe no 
knights came back. Instead came the breathless mes- 
senger, covered with dust and blood, who told in broken 
voice of a battle lost, of riderless horses, of gallant war- 
riors lying dead on the field, and of the fierce enemy's 
near approach upon the castle. If the latter were the 
case, the grief and woe were forgotten in the hurried 
preparation made for defending the castle as the enemy 
gathered and attempted to scale or beat down the walls. 



HOW THE CASTLE REFINED THE TEUTON 289 

The castle had to be very strong to withstand the 
enemy's assaults, for there was not a place or means of 
defense that he did not know how to attack. If the 
siege were long, the enemy emptied the moat of its 
water and filled it with earth. Huge rams made of the 
largest forest trees, fitted with enormous iron heads and 
mounted by chains on a great frame-work, beat against 
the mortar and stone, trying to force an entrance through 
the wall. Massive poles, tipped with sharp iron points, 
tried to pick out "stones and mortar. Mines were dug 
under the great wall in the hope that it would fall. The 
catapult — a machine for throwing heavy objects — 
hurled great darts, rocks and huge balls of lead at the 
men on the walls. Assaults were made and repulsed 
amid the shouts of the living and the groans of the dying. 
Wives and daughters and children in the keep watched 
the contest with blanched cheeks, or with true Teutonic 
courage cheered the warriors on. 

If the enemy was beaten back, the castle forces pur- 
sued them. Slaughter and revenge surely followed, and 
the troubadour celebrated the victory in the banquet 
hall in a new song. If the castle was too weak to resist, 
and the enemy succeeded in breaking down the wall, 
there was a rush for the keep, where the last clash of 
arms and struggle of brave knights decided the day. 
If the keep was taken, foes rushed in, sword and torch 
in hand. The castle was plundered from top to bottom, 
the women were slain, the torch was applied, and as the 
victors rode away nothing was left but a ruined pile of 
stones to mark the place. Such was the brutality of 
warfare in those days when men fought hand to hand 
in mortal combat. 



290 SCHOOL HISTORY 

But in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries feudalism 
began to decay. Through the influence largely of the 
Crusades, which we shall study next year, free cities 
began to spring up, and to be as powerful as the feudal 
lords and feudal armies. The common mail began to 
feel that it was better to be a freeman in the city than 
to be a vassal to a lord. Gunpowder, first used in fire- 
arms in the middle of the fourteenth century, soon made 
the common man equal in war to the armored lord, — 
for a gun in the hands of a commoner was as effective 
as one in the hands of the lord. Castle walls which 
had thousands of times given safe protection to the 
plundering lord from the bows and arrows of the out- 
raged serf, could be battered to flinders in a few hours 
with the coming of gunpowder and the cannon ball. 

But although feudalism like monasticism finally de- 
cayed, the spirit of freedom and chivalrous knighthood 
which it produced in Europe went on growing, not 
alone in the castle, but slowly extending to the house and 
hut of every man. Feudalism did not produce a society 
in which the comforts, pleasures and beauties of life 
were immediately given out to all, to common people as 
well as the noble, but rather one in which they were 
held by the few. The millions of serfs toiled, that the 
thousands of knights might hunt, and fight, and revel in 
their castles. But to have a few free, brave, chivalrous 
men was better than to have none. It was vastly better 
to have a life of refinement around and in the castle 
than to have the whole body of Teutons remain rude 
and coarse, as they were when we first saw them in the 
German woods. Feudalism w T as a government and so- 
ciety of the lords, for the lords, and by the lords, and 



HOW THE CASTLE REFINED THE TEUTON 291 

this was a great step forward from a government of a 
despot, by a despot, and for a despot, such as were the 
governments of olden times. But it was not as good as 
a government " of the people, by the people, and for the 
people," to which we are finally coming. But the free- 
dom of the few in feudalism helped to work out the 
freedom for all in democracy. Thus did feudalism 
give the Teuton the ideal of a brave man and true gen- 
tleman, as the monastery gave him the ideal of a life of 
sacrifice and service. These seeds will grow till it will 
be seen that all persons may become noble by being 
gentle and brave, and that each one may serve God 
acceptably by unselfishly serving his fellow-men. 

References 

See articles on Feudalism and Chivalry in good cyclopedias. 

Duruy : The History of the Middle Ages ; Holt & Co., N.Y. 

Emerton : Mediaeval Europe ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 

Thatcher and Schwill : History of the Middle Ages ; Scribner's Sons, 
N.Y. 

Myers : Mediaeval and Modern History; Ginn & Co., Boston. 

Lacroix : Military and Religious Life of the Middle Ages ; Appleton 
& Co., N.Y. 

Guizot : History of Civilization in Europe; Appleton & Co., N.Y. 

Kemp : Outlines of History for District and Graded Schools ; Ginn 
& Co., Boston. 

Study the biographies of Charlemagne, Alfred, William I of Eng- 
land, Richard I of England, Warwick ; Henry IV and Frederick 
Barbarossa of Germany ; Louis IX of France ; Joan of Arc. 



SIXTH-GRADE WORK 

The aim of the sixth grade is to give a general view of those 
great movements and agencies by which western Europe traveled 
back over the old historical road of the past, and came in contact 
with the East, — the early home of civilization. By this means it 
came to understand and appreciate the past, took it up slowly and 
built it into its own life, and thus made a broader foundation upon 
which western Europe developed a richer and more complex civili- 
zation than any which had gone before. 

The subjects presented are : — 

i. The Crusades, which united the peoples of western Europe in 
their first great enterprise, and re-opened the historical roadways to 
the arts, the ideas and the luxuries of the East. 

2. The Renascence, which opened their eyes to the beauty of 
Greece and Rome, and broadened their horizon from the narrow 
limits of the monastic cell and the monotonous life of the monastery, 
to the extensive views gained by travel and the study of the classi- 
cal world. 

3. The growth of the English Parliament, which was the great 
agent through which the Teuton developed the principle of self-gov- 
ernment, and thus saved for himself and the modern world that price- 
less principle of personal liberty which we saw in germ in our study 
in the fifth grade when we first studied the Teuton in his forest home. 

4. The Reformation, which enabled the Teuton to develop the 
same self-reliance and independence in religion which the Parliament 
made possible in government, and enabled him to enjoy freedom of 
religious worship as the Parliament enabled him to enjoy freedom 
of political discussion. 

Finally, as a preparation for the seventh-grade work, the teacher 
should enable the pupil to see which one of the great western Euro- 
pean nations — Spain, France, or England — was most fully adopt- 
ing the new ideas and building them into their institutions, and 
hence which one would be most able to bring new ideas to the New 
World, when it was spread out to view at the close of the fifteenth 
century and invited the new-bursting seed of Europe to its virgin soil. 

292 



THE CRUSADES, AND HOW THE THOUGHT 
OF EUROPE WAS ENLARGED THROUGH 
THEM. 

IO96-I276 A.D. 

During the period from about 1100 to 1300 a.d., the 
Crusade movements eastward were going on. In all our 
study through the grades up to this time we have seen 
the stream of history gradually flowing westward setting 
up and overturning great nations and cities ; but now 
for a time the direction is changed, and thousands of 
people go back to Asia over the same ways and routes 
that the Eastern people had used in entering Europe. 
The immediate cause of the Crusade movement was 
the harsh treatment received by the Christian pil- 
grims when they went to visit the sepulcher of Christ 
in Jerusalem. The religion of the people who held 
Jerusalem and all southwestern Asia at this time was 
the Mohammedan. The Mohammedans, who arose 
in Arabia under Mohammed, in 622, had been busy 
conquering the inhabitants of all southwestern Asia 
until about 750 a.d., when there was little more left 
in that region for them to conquer. Then they set 
to work to learn the ideas of medicine, philosophy, 
sculpture, painting, architecture and literature, which 
had been spread out over this country centuries 
before by the Greeks under Alexander, and further 
developed by the Persians. By the time of the Cru- 

293 



294 SCHOOL HISTORY 

sades, the Mohammedans were the best educated people 
in the world, knowing much more about science, phi- 
losophy, medicine, commerce and art than did the 
Teutons, of western Europe, whom we have already 
been studying about. As they became well educated, 
they became less fierce and warlike, and began to toler- 
ate other religions besides their own, so that when the 
pilgrims from Europe began to go much to Jerusalem 
to worship, in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, 
the Mohammedans received them kindly and let them 
travel back and forth unmolested. Jerusalem, as you 
can readily see, was a very sacred city in the eyes of 
the Christians, because it was the place where Christ 
walked and talked and worked with men, and contained 
his sepulcher and many things connected with his min- 
istry. An old poet, writing of Jerusalem at that time, 
said: "She is chosen and hallowed by the Almighty. 
She attracts the faithful as the magnet attracts the 
steel, as the mother-sheep attracts the lamb with its 
milk, as the sea attracts the river to which it has given 
birth." 

We have already seen how the monks in the monas- 
teries valued the relics of departed saints and used them 
both in religious worship and as a means of curing 
disease. These journeys to the tomb of Christ were 
partly the outgrowth of the great reverence the people 
of western Europe had come to have for sacred relics 
and sacred places. By worshiping at the tomb of Christ 
they hoped to be forgiven for their sins, even if they 
had been very great. Then, any sacred relic which 
they might secure and bring home was of so much 
spiritual value that pilgrims were willing to undertake 



THE CRUSADES 295 

hard trips for that object alone. Some pilgrims, however, 
did not have any great desire for these things but went 
chiefly because they loved travel, like their early Teu- 
tonic ancestors, or because they hoped to gain large 
fortunes by carrying on trade with the East. So, for 
many years before the real Crusades began, one could 
have seen weary travelers, generally on foot, with wallet 
on back and staff in hand going back and forth on the 
roads, to and from the Holy Land. 

Since there were no hotels in that day, the Christians 
built churches in the city of Jerusalem, established con- 
vents, and organized hospitals along the road for the sick 
and wounded, and built houses, so that any one arriving 
there helpless might have food and shelter. Those who 
took charge of the pilgrims and saw that they received 
comfort and protection, organized themselves into great 
military orders, and finally became very wealthy. They 
were thus able to build immense forts as well as hos- 
pitals along the roads and in the Holy Land. The three 
great orders of monks were called the Knights of St. 
John, the Knights of the Temple and the Teutonic 
Knights. In addition to the three vows which all 
monks took, these knights took an oath which bound 
them to fight the infidels, as they called the Mohamme- 
dans, and to protect the pilgrims. 

But the peaceful state of affairs existing during the 
ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries between the Chris- 
tians and Mohammedans, under which pilgrims were 
allowed by the Mohammedans to travel freely through 
the Holy Land, finally changed. A horde of Turks, 
fierce, ignorant and cruel, came sweeping south-west- 
ward through the mountain passes from Central Asia, 



296 SCHOOL HISTORY 

and rapidly conquered Persia, Syria, Egypt and Pales- 
tine, and took Jerusalem into their possession. They be- 
came Mohammedans in religion, but being of the yellow- 
race and ignorant, and caring little for the necessaries 
and nothing for the luxuries of life, they soon destroyed 
the greater part of the fine civilization built up by the 
Arabs, and above all things desired to destroy every root 
and branch of the Christian religion which had been 
planted in the East by the monks and pilgrims. Thus 
it came about that the Christians could no longer go on 
their pilgrimages undisturbed. They were not only in 
danger from the Turks while passing through the coun- 
try of Asia Minor and Syria on the way to Jerusalem, but 
they knew no safety after they arrived there ; for the 
Turks had taken possession of the Christian churches, 
destroyed many of the relics of the saints, and sought to 
compel the Christians to accept the teachings of Mo- 
hammed. The stories carried back to Europe by return- 
ing pilgrims of cruel treatment to themselves and 
hateful treatment of the sacred places, was slowly 
kindling a fire in the Teutonic heart of western Europe 
which after smoldering awhile will, if fanned, burst forth 
with mighty flame. 

Just at the time when the Christians of Europe were 
being stirred by the stories and preaching of the indig- 
nant pilgrims, the Turks began to move farther westward 
into Asia Minor and to attack the lands of the eastern 
Roman Empire with its capital at Constantinople. The 
emperor, unable to defeat them with his troops, called 
for help from the West. At this time the head of the 
Christian Church was Pope Urban II. He felt that the 
time had come when the hot embers of indignation 



THE CRUSADES 297 

smoldering in the chivalric heart of Europe might be 
fanned into a flame. In the autumn of 1095 he called 
together a great throng of people at Placentia in north- 
ern Italy, which he addressed and inspired with enthusi- 
asm to go to the East and battle against the Turk. 
From Placentia he crossed the Alps and went to his 
old home at Clermont, in southern France. Now he was 
in the home also of the Franks — the bravest, most im- 
aginative and most knightly of all the Teutonic people. 
Here a council was called which was so largely attended 
by bishops, monks and ordinary members, of the church 
that no hall in the town could be found large enough to 
hold them. Urban mounted a lofty scaffold in the open 
air and addressed the vast throng of people. He told 
them that the Turks were cowards, that success was 
therefore sure to the brave Frank who went against 
him ; that they would not only win success, but gain a 
vastly higher blessing — forgiveness of their sins ; that 
they might have to suffer pain and tortures of body, but 
that these would only the more certainly gain salvation 
for their souls. " Go, then," he said, "on your errand of 
love, which will put out of sight all the ties that bind you 
to the spots which you have called your homes. Your 
homes, in truth, they are not. For the Christian all the 
world is exile, and all the world is at the same time his 
country. If you have a rich patrimony here, a better 
patrimony awaits you in the Holy Land. They who die 
will enter the mansions of heaven, while the living 
shall pay their vows before the sepulcher of their Lord. 
Blessed are they who, taking this vow upon them, shall 
obtain such a recompense ; happy they who are led to 
such a conflict that they may share in such rewards." 



298 SCHOOL HISTORY 

When the Pope shouted the passionate and eloquent 
words, " It is the will of God, it is the will of God," the 
vast throng broke in with one voice upon his words, and 
shouted again, " It is indeed the will of God." Then 
the Pope continued : " Let these words be your war-cry 
when you find yourselves in presence of the enemy. 
You are soldiers of the cross ; wear, then, on your 
breasts, or on your shoulders, the blood-red sign of Him 
who died for the salvation of your souls." 

Thousands eagerly pressed upon him when he ceased 
speaking, and took the vow to go on the crusade, and 
received from his hand the sign — a red cross, which 
was fastened from the right shoulder diagonally across 
the breast. Urban then put the property of the Cru- 
saders under the care of the Church, prohibited all 
private war, offered great spiritual rewards to those 
who would take up the movement, and commanded the 
clergy to preach the crusade in all parts of France. 

Among the many who went forth to preach the 
crusade was a dwarfish, ungainly monk, called Peter the 
Hermit. He was active, restless and enthusiastic, had 
no doubt often heard the stories of the cruel treatment 
of the pilgrims, and may have heard the eloquent ser- 
mon of Urban at Clermont. 

Riding on a mule, bare headed, with naked feet, 
starved countenance, flashing eye, wearing a coarse gar- 
ment bound with a girdle of cords, Peter went among 
the peoples of France and Germany, whom we have 
seen in the fifth grade to be so full of vigor and life, and 
told his burning tale. Before many months had passed, 
fifteen thousand people, mostly ignorant and poor, were 
flocking at his back, begging to be led to the Holy Land. 



THE CRUSADES 299 

Peter readily consented to lead them. The mass of 
people who thus started out was so great and so much 
like an unruly mob that they were divided into two 
divisions. One was led by Peter the Hermit, the other 
by a poor warrior called Walter the Penniless. With 
practically no preparation the army (if army it could be 
called) began its march overland to Jerusalem. It was 
composed of men, women and children of all sizes, ages 
and conditions of health. Some of the most fanatical 
women were dressed as men and went as fighters ; 
others went as nurses, to give medicine and solace to the 
thousands who sickened and died from hunger and 
disease on the way. Whole families undertook the 
journey, taking with them the children, the sick and the 
aged. With no provisions, few arms and no discipline, 
trusting everything to God, the rabble straggled along, 
Walter the Penniless going in advance with 30,000 or 
40,000 people, and Peter the Hermit following with an 
army that increased as he went along to between 80,000 
and 100,000 people. It is a pitiable sight, but it is an 
early effort of the common people. 

On making their way toward Constantinople, the 
army marched through the country of the Bulgarians and 
Hungarians, who had but lately been converted to 
Christianity. These people were wild and savage and 
could but feebly understand or realize what Christ's 
teachings meant. When Walter led his army through 
their country, he tried to keep the Crusaders from 
stealing and destroying the farm products ; but as they 
had no food, and as the inhabitants were unwilling to 
furnish provisions, the Crusaders helped themselves, no 
doubt needlessly destroying property and killing some 



300 SCHOOL HISTORY 

of the people who were not willing to provide them with 
supplies. This angered the inhabitants, and they in 
turn killed many of the Crusaders. Walter, however, 
pressed forward toward Constantinople, and finally 
reached it with the merest handful of those who had set 
out on the march. Peter the Hermit and his followers, 
finding the dead bodies of their companions along the 
roadside, made war on the inhabitants in the countries 
through which they passed, only to be defeated and 
left dead, wounded and dying, along the roadside. Of 
about two hundred thousand who made up Peter's and 
Walter's straggling bands from first to last, it is said 
only about seven thousand reached Constantinople.. 
This fragment attempted to go on to Jerusalem, but they 
had not gone far into Asia Minor before they quarreled 
with Walter, refused to obey him, and were soon 
entirely destroyed by the Turks, Walter and a few 
others returning to Europe. 

The armies in the West had in the meantime, during 
the winter and spring after the great sermon of Pope 
Urban, been making careful preparation for the march. 
Commanders, armor, implements of warfare, and pro- 
visions had all been fairly well provided. The body of 
the army came from all parts of France and southern 
Italy, Germany furnishing very few warriors in the 
beginning of the Crusades, because the Pope and the 
German emperor were quarreling with each other, and 
Spain kept her troops at home to fight the Moors. The 
marching army in the time of the Crusades was divided 
into two large classes, — the mounted soldiers and those 
on foot. Kings, princes, barons, nobles and knights be- 
longed to the first class ; common laborers, vassals and 



THE CRUSADES 301 

monks, to the second. There were always with the 
Crusaders, likewise, some old men, women and chil- 
dren, who marched with the second class. All the 
warriors wore armor, and carried various kinds of imple- 
ments of warfare. 

Now that we see one of the great armies ready for 
the march in the spring of 1096, let us see something 
of the implements of warfare they carried with them. 
These were of two classes : first, those used with which 
to attack, and second, those with which to defend ; the 
first was called offensive, and the second defensive, 
arms. The offensive were those used for slaying the 
enemy, the defensive those for protection against the 
enemy's attack. 

The offensive arms, at first used by the cavalry, were 
the lance, sword, dagger, battle-ax and club. The 
lance was a smooth pole, or staff, about eleven feet long, 
tapering from the handle to a rather blunt point. It 
was used in making charges upon the ranks of the 
enemy. The sword was made of the hardest of steel, 
and, counting the handle, or hilt, was about the length 
of a man's cane. The blade was sharp on both edges, 
and came abruptly to a point at the end. When not in 
use, the sword hung from a belt in a steel case called 
a sheath or scabbard. They learned from the Arabs 
how to make their best swords. The daggers were also 
made of steel, and looked like those of to-day. The 
battle-ax had a handle somewhat longer than our hatchet 
handle, and the cutting edge was crescent shaped. That 
part which corresponded to the part of the hatchet 
we use to drive nails with, usually ended in a sharp 
point, and the end of the handle farthest from the hand 



302 SCHOOL HISTORY 

often ended in a spear-head. The club resembled a 
policeman's club, though perhaps a little longer. 

The weapons of the foot soldier were the same as 
those of the horseman, except he had no lance. The 
sword and ax were used by both foot soldier and horse- 
man. The archer carried a sling, ax, bow, and a quiver 
containing forty arrows. Besides these arms, the spear, 
mace and flail were sometimes used. The spear was 
very long, ending in a sharp, triangular iron point like 
an arrowhead. It was used by the foot soldier in mak- 
ing a charge. The mace was a round stick ending in a 
piece of iron which had thorn-like projections upon it. 
It was wielded like the battle-ax. The flail was made 
of a number of iron balls studded with points like those 
on the mace. These were fastened to a strong handle 
by means of small chains. This weapon was used like 
a whip, and you can see how cruel it must have seemed 
when used. 

After the Crusaders gained some experience in fight- 
ing, they did away with the sling and began to use 
the crossbow, which they learned how to use from the 
Turks. This became one of the chief weapons in the 
later Crusades. It was much like an ordinary bow 
which boys make now, with a wooden stock fastened 
at right-angles to the bow. By means of this stock, the 
bowstring could be stretched much more tightly, and 
thus the arrow could be shot farther, straighter, and with 
far greater force. All except the horseman used it, and 
it tended to put the archer, or peasant, on an equal foot- 
ing with the horseman. 

The warriors carried most of these arms in their belts, 
as hunters carry their cartridges nowadays. 



THE CRUSADES 303 

Now, having seen something of the arms with which 
they attacked the enemy, let us look at the arms with 
which they defended themselves. 

Throughout all the ranks of the army, every warrior 
had some sort of protection for the head. In the be- 
ginning of the Crusades it was an iron or steel cap, 
much like a scull cap, which came down to the eye- 
brows in front and had a projection which covered the 
nose. Often the archer had no further armor, but 
sometimes he had padded armor, made of cotton or 
cloth quilted to a leathern or canvas shirt, and covered 
with linen or silk. 

Both foot soldier and horseman wore a hauberk. This 
was a coat of mail coming to the knees, and made either 
of little iron plates about the size of a man's palm sewed 
to a leather coat, or it was sometimes woven of chain. 
The hauberk came up to the edge of the cap, thus pro- 
tecting the neck and all of the head except the face. 

As the Crusades continued, the helmet was made as 
a, covering for the entire head. That part covering the 
face was the visor, and could be raised or lowered over 
the face at will. It had a slit to see through, and 
another to breathe through. 

The hauberk, or coat of mail, was gradually replaced 
by a complete suit of armor which protected every part 
of the body. This armor was made in many pieces, 
each piece having a name, and there were joints in the 
armor at the elbow, knee, ankle, wrist, fingers, shoulders, 
hips, etc. The parts covering the hand aitd wrist taken 
together was called the gauntlet. The parts covering 
the body taken together was called the corselet, and 
those of the head, the helmet. 



304 SCHOOL HISTORY 

The shield finished the warrior's defensive outfit. It 
was usually round and about two and a half feet in 
diameter, though it was sometimes of other shapes and 
sizes. It was always slightly convex, that is, it bulged 
outward in the center, so that the arrow, sword, spear, 
etc., striking it, would glance off. It was fastened to the 
left arm by a leathern band. 

Horses as well as men were clothed in armor. They 
had iron or steel plates to protect their heads and 
chests. Such were the arms the Crusaders used, during 
their two hundred years' struggle with the Turks : you 
can see pictures of nearly all of the parts of armor in 
some of the unabridged dictionaries. 

But we left the army just ready to begin its march, 
in the spring of 1096; let us now return and see it on 
its way to Jerusalem. 

The first division of the army went entirely by land, 
passing eastward by Constantinople, thence across 
the Bosphorus, thence eastward through Asia Minor, 
and southward to Jerusalem. On account of the 
heat while on the march, there was intense suffering 
and disease, hundreds dying from hunger and thirst. 
Many times on the march they passed through vast 
regions of the country in which all the provisions had 
been destroyed by the Turks ; often they stopped for 
months to lay siege to a city, finally either overcoming 
it by starving the inhabitants into surrendering, or by 
getting into the city by one of the various means of 
attacking the*walls, and then overcoming the inhabit- 
ants. Let us see something of the way the Crusaders 
attacked a city. 

In the first place you must know that the city to be 



THE CRUSADES 305 

attacked was inclosed by a high and thick stone wall, 
say from ten to fifteen feet thick, and guarded by armed 
men. If the Crusaders were strong enough in numbers, 
they surrounded and attacked it at different points at 
the same time, so as to divide the force within. They 
were armed generally with bows. With these they tried 
to drive the guards from the walls. The other means 
used they did not generally take along with them, but 
made them when they were needed. If the walls of 
the attacked city were not too high, they made a great 
many ladders, and by going in large numbers tried to 
set them against the walls, climb them, and drive off the 
guards. But the guards on the walls, generally on the 
sharpest watch, threw down stones, arrows, or boiling oil 
on them. To guard against this, the besiegers, before 
going close to the walls, made something with which to 
protect themselves called mantelets. These were made 
by stretching fresh skins over a wooden frame, and were 
used by holding them over the head. Sometimes the man- 
telets would be large enough to cover one man, some- 
times a half-dozen. In any attempt to go close to the 
walls the mantelet was sure to be used. In addition to 
the crossbows used by the archers, there were other instru- 
ments of attack constantly kept working. There was a 
kind of stone-throwing implement called a mangonel. 
This was made by stretching a couple of stout ropes 
between two posts, as you might, for example, stretch 
a rubber band from your thumb to forefinger. Then a 
wooden beam, or bar, with a cup in the outer end, was 
placed between these tightly stretched ropes and pulled 
back and down, so as to wind the ropes in different direc- 
tions. In the cup at the outer end a large stone was 



306 SCHOOL HISTORY 

placed, and when the bar was let go, the ropes, untwist- 
ing quickly, threw it forward, and the stone was hurled 
through the air over the wall. You see they had not 
learned to use cannon. They also had what was called 
a balista. This was simply a very large crossbow, 
the string of the bow being drawn back by a crank 
at the end of the stock. These implements were used 
for shooting heavy arrows or long bolts of iron. They 
were like the crossbows made now, only they were 
so large and strong that it took two or three men to 
handle them. Sometimes the Crusaders built wooden 
towers, in which quite a number of well-armed men 
stationed themselves. The tower, which was on wheels, 
was then rolled up close to the walls. When they were 
close enough, the men in the towers threw out a bridge 
to the walls and tried to rush out on them and drive 
away those guarding them. If the walls were not too 
strongly guarded, this method of attack sometimes suc- 
ceeded. If the walls could not be scaled in this way, 
they next attempted either to tear them down or to go 
under them. For tearing them down, they had two 
different devices — the ram and the bore. The ram 
was made by taking a large tree and covering one end 
with a heavy iron cap. This was then swung by ropes 
from a frame. Like the tower, it was placed on wheels 
and run up to the walls. It was entirely covered, and 
under this cover fifty or sixty men were required to use 
it. This was done by pulling it far back, and then 
allowing it to swing violently forward, striking the end 
against the wall. The bore was made and used in the 
same way, except that instead of an iron battering-head 
it had an iron point. The intention in the use of both 



THE CRUSADES 307 

was to loosen the stones in the wall, causing it to fall. 
Sometimes if the ground was soft under the wall, it 
was easier to go under it than through it. Thus fre- 
quently the Crusaders, with spades, dug large holes, or 
mines, under the wall. Sometimes, to keep those inside 
from knowing where they were mining, the besiegers 
began some distance from the wall and tunneled up to 
it. When the wall was undermined, it would crumble 
down for want of support, and the army would then 
rush in. Probably not all of these means were used to 
capture any one city, but they were the different ways 
the Crusaders knew and learned about, through their 
long struggle and intercourse with the Turks and Arabs 
in the East. 

The first Crusading army we have spoken of, after 
much suffering and several miraculous experiences, 
came in sight of the city of Jerusalem. So greatly 
were they overpowered by the sight of its walls and 
towers, that they fell upon their knees, burst into tears, 
bent to the earth and kissed it, and removed their shoes 
and marched barefoot over the last of the journey, that 
they might not desecrate the sacred soil. After several 
weeks of intense suffering for want of water, and by a 
siege similar to the one just described, the city was 
captured. So full of passion and hate were the Cru- 
saders that they slew and hacked to pieces thousands of 
Turkish men, women and children, and burnt the Jews 
alive in their synagogues. An exaggerated tale, but 
one showing in general their cruelty, is told by the 
writers of that day, that the slaughter of the Turks was 
so great that the Crusaders' horses waded in blood 
knee-deep when they went to the Church of the Holy 



3o8 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Sepulcher to thank the Lord for delivering it into their 
hands. With Jerusalem taken, they set to work to 
drive the Turks out of the Holy Land, and immediately 
organized a government on the pattern of feudalism. 
After some debate, the feudal princes united in choosing 
Godfrey of Bouillon, a French nobleman, as ruler of 
Jerusalem. He refused to wear the crown of a king 
where the Savior had worn on his bleeding forehead a 
crown of thorns. He called himself Protector of the 
Holy Sepulcher. 

On account of continual warfare with the Turks and 
ceaseless and bitter quarrels among themselves, the 
Crusaders had great difficulty in keeping the kingdom 
of Jerusalem, and other little feudal kingdoms which 
were set up in Syria, from being overthrown. The 
Turks captured small bits of territory in the vicinity of 
Jerusalem, from time to time, which caused other cru- 
sading armies to leave Europe both by ship and land 
and make their way toward Jerusalem, — always, how- 
ever, to repeat the old story of suffering, plunder, 
disease, death by the tens of thousands, and ceaseless 
Wrangling, with no permanent conquests. 

In all, seven Crusades, extending over a period of 
nearly two hundred years (1096- 12 72 a.d.), were under- 
taken by the Christians against the Mohammedans, — 
some directly against the Mohammedans around Jeru- 
salem, others against those in Egypt and around the 
southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. But, with 
all the cost of life and health and money, the Crusaders 
did not succeed in permanently rescuing the sepulcher 
from the infidels ; in less than a hundred years after 
Jerusalem was captured by the Christians, it fell into 



THE CRUSADES 309 

the hands of the Turks, and was never again regained 
by the Christians for any considerable length of time. 

But because the Christians did not succeed in per- 
manently retaining the Holy Land, and because the 
cruelties which they practiced in many cases was a 
mockery of the religion of the Gentle Master whose 
tomb they were seeking to rescue, yet we must not for 
these reasons regard the Crusade movement as a failure. 
The effects of the movement were very great, and in 
many ways very beneficial to civilization. Let us briefly 
see some of these : — 

1. The Crusades greatly enriched the Church. Many 
persons, on leaving their homes, gave their lands out- 
right to the Church or monastery, or to keep for them 
till they returned. Very frequently they did not return. 
Enormous taxes were also gathered into the treasuries 
of the Church for two hundred years for the avowed 
purpose of the Crusades. With continual increase of 
wealth came corresponding growth of the Church's 
power. 

2. The Crusades greatly weakened the power of 
feudalism and made it possible for strong nations to 
develop. The feudal lords, on starting for Jerusalem, 
sometimes sold their lands, sometimes gave them to 
monasteries, and sometimes left them under the care of 
their servants. In this way there came to be fewer 
lords holding land ; and often some powerful lord who 
stayed at home would seize a large amount of land and 
make himself king. Further than this, the serfs who 
wished to fight the infidels were granted freedom, 
and when fighting side by side with their lords began 
to lose their feeling of dependence. When they re- 



3IO SCHOOL HISTORY 

turned from their trip, they would often go into the 
cities and become free laborers and citizens, rather than 
remain on the farm as serfs. This made feudal laborers 
scarce, and so the feudal lord began to have to hire free 
labor for the farm. 

3. There was a tendency among many of the people 
who were left at home — with most of the fighting men 
gone on the Crusades — to feel unsafe; hence many 
gathered into towns, which soon developed into cities 
and afterward grew to be very important. These 
cities developed individual freedom, wealth, art and cul- 
ture, and gave the common man a vastly greater chance 
for development than he had had as a peasant on the 
feudal farm. 

4. Commerce was very greatly benefited by the Cru- 
sades. The trade routes that were opened anew into 
Asia created a taste for the luxuries of the East, and 
these luxuries were carried back westward over the 
trade routes in an ever increasing abundance and 
found their way into monastery, cathedral, and in a 
slight degree into the homes of the common people. 
European traders took grains, hides and meats to 
the Orient, bringing back furs, embroideries, dyes, 
jewels, pearls, glassware, silks, cotton, spices, linens, 
damask, perfumes, oils and fruits to the Europeans. 
Regular trade routes were established, and the seacoast 
cities of Italy, France and Germany rapidly grew rich. 
The art of shipbuilding was greatly stimulated. It is 
said single ships were built capable of carrying fifteen 
hundred passengers. Ships were built stronger and 
more solidly than before, so that they might not be so 
easily destroyed ; larger, so that more could be carried ; 



THE CRUSADES 31 1 

with several masts and sails instead of one, so as to in- 
crease the speed of the ship. The mariner's compass 
came into general use in the twelfth century as a result 
of this great activity in shipping. AH in all, it may be 
said that the Crusade spread the Mediterranean over 
with sails, and by pouring Asia's luxuries in Europe's 
lap, made Europe rich. 

5. Another result of the movement was a great in- 
crease of knowledge of many kinds : — 

The Europeans saw many kinds of plants and animals 
which they had not seen before. Some of the animals 
they brought back to Europe, and with these they estab- 
lished zoological gardens. 

European farming was advanced by the Crusaders 
bringing back with them the " Dutch " windmill from the 
Orient, where it was used for grinding corn and draw- 
ing water. They also introduced into Europe the 
donkey, mule and Arabian horse ; these were used both 
in war and on the farm. 

Two hundred years of travel from Europe to Asia 
had much the same effect in broadening the minds of 
the European that travel nowadays between America 
and Europe has in broadening the minds of Americans. 
It taught them that there were as brave, honest, tem- 
perate, industrious people as they were themselves, and 
it brought them in contact with peoples enjoying com- 
forts and luxuries for the home such as they had never 
dreamed of before, such as carpets, sofas, rugs, mat- 
tresses, glass mirrors, fine potteries, silks, brocades and 
jewels. . 

The Crusades greatly influenced literature in Europe 
by giving much material in way of travel, stories and heroic 



312 SCHOOL HISTORY 

deeds, which were afterward sung by the Troubadours, 
used by the poets and written about by the historians. 

Geography was a subject to which the monastic 
schools had paid almost no attention ; some of the more 
important geographical facts learned on the road to and 
from the holy sepulcher were the shape of the seacoast, 
position and shape of capes, harbors, bays and islands ; 
the depth of the sea ; the direction and force of winds ; 
ocean currents and tides ; and the use of the stars in 
navigation. Having gained this knowledge, it created a 
desire to know more, and men, like Marco Polo, set out 
on journeys of exploration and, on returning home, wrote 
books giving their experiences. This interest in explo- 
ration and the commerce which came from it were long 
steps toward the discovery of America. In fact we may 
say that the two hundred years of Europe's travel to the 
East was a great preparatory school for the discovery of 
the West. Let us briefly see how this was. 

As already said, during the Crusade movement, the 
people of western Europe came gradually to realize 
that the Old East had many ideas, comforts and 
luxuries which they lacked. This new desire caused 
the Mediterranean Sea to be whitened with sails as 
it had been in the old days of Phoenicia, Carthage, 
Alexandria, Greece and Rome. Thousands, and even 
hundreds of thousands, were engaged in shipbuilding, 
or trading, or in growing and manufacturing those 
things which were being bought and sold. 

From the beginning, Italy led in the movement. 
Her people were the first to work up the great trade 
routes and to see the value an Oriental commerce 
would be to them. Accordingly, they began very 



THE CRUSADES 3 13 

early to carry Crusaders across to the East and to 
bring shiploads of goods back. 

If you look at your map, you will notice that Italy 
has in the north two large seacoast cities, one on 
each side of the peninsula. These are Genoa, on the 
west, and Venice, on the east. These cities, as you 
see, are nearer the main land of Europe than any 
other Italian seacoast cities and they are places which 
are rather easily reached from the interior of the 
continent. Because of these advantages they became 
great shipping and distributing points. Both became 
rich, and finally became bitter rivals of one another 
in wealth and trade. 

Genoa sent her ships through by Constantinople, 
thence across the Black Sea and thence on into west- 
ern and central Asia. Venice took the southern route, 
going down to the Isthmus of Suez, thence by the Red 
Sea to the Indian Ocean and on to India and China. 

The Turks, who knew little of the comforts or 
luxuries of life, hindered their trade very considerably 
during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ; but 
when they took Constantinople, in 1453, they stopped 
the Genoese ships altogether from following their old 
line of travel. This gave Venice the advantage in all 
the eastern trade and brought Genoa to a standstill, 
and soon to a decline. This greatly exasperated the 
Genoese, and they at once began to look for another 
route by which their ships could reach the East. 

On returning from the East, the Crusaders brought 
with them many new ideas of the extent of the world 
and of the motions of the sun and stars. These they 
got from the Arabs, who had worked them out in 



3 14 SCHOOL HISTORY 

their excellent universities and obtained them from ex- 
perience in extensive travel and trade. They learned 
that China and India are almost due east from Europe 
and that they are bordered on the east by a sea. Tak- 
ing these geographical facts as a basis, the Genoese 
navigator, Columbus, formed a new plan for reaching 
these old eastern countries. It was this : The sea, 
he said, that bordered on China and India, was the 
other side of the " Dark Sea," as it was then called, 
or the Atlantic Ocean, as we now call it. This of 
course, if true, would make the world round. Now 
you can very easily see the plan he conceived. It 
was to sail due west across the "Dark Sea" and land 
directly in the Old East with all her riches and lux- 
uries. It was difficult for him to convince people that 
he was right, but by patience and perseverance he 
at last induced the Queen of Spain, Isabella, to furnish 
him money to try his plan. In all the history of the 
world up to this time no one had had the courage to 
strike out boldly on the sea, out of sight of land ; for 
they feared that the monsters of the sea would devour 
them or that they would never be able to return to 
land. To do so now required great courage and self- 
reliance. Columbus set sail in 1492, and in sailing 
westward for the coast of China and India, ran into 
North America, and thus opened to the already won- 
dering eyes of Europe a new world of land and water, 
three times as large as all the world they had known 
and explored up to that time. Thus you see how the 
Crusades, though failing in permanently securing for 
the Christians the Holy Land in the East, did give the 
Teutons a training which greatly aided them in gaining 



THE CRUSADES 315 

and developing a much nobler land in the West. 
Through the Crusades Old Asia, feeble and dying, 
bequeathed her thought, her art, her riches and lux- 
ury to her young daughter, Europe. Europe will in- 
crease her Asiatic inheritance by adding to it the art 
of Greece and the law of Rome, and presently we shall 
see how the daughter passed on the inheritance of a]] 
that Asia and Europe had accumulated through all the 
ages to her lusty son — " Time's noblest offspring" — 
America. 

References 

Cox : The Crusades ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

Duruy : History of the Middle Ages ; Holt & Co., N.Y. 

Thatcher and Schwill : History of the Middle Ages ; Scribner's 

Sons, N.Y. 
Emerton : Mediaeval Europe ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Guizot : History of Civilization in Europe : Appleton & Co., N.Y. 
Myers : Mediaeval and Modern History ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Lacroix : Religious and Military History of the Middle Ages ; not 
so good in text, but very good for illustrations ; Virtue & Co., 
London. 
Adams : Civilization During the Middle Ages : Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 
See good cyclopedias for articles on the Crusades and prominent 

leaders in them. 
Study the biographies of Pope Urban IT, Peter the Hermit, Godfrey 

of Bouillon, Innocent III, Frederick Barbarossa, Richard I of 

England, Saladin, Marco Polo, Isabella, Columbus. 



HOW THE TEUTONIC SEED OF SELF-GOV- 
ERNMENT PASSED FROM THE GER- 
MAN WOODS INTO ENGLAND AND WAS 
FINALLY PLANTED IN AMERICA 

The stream of history is something like a river. The 
river rises often as a mere rivulet, but as it flows along, 
one tributary after another falling into it, first from one 
side, then from the other, it becomes wider and deeper, 
its current stronger, and its course continually more 
difficult to change. 

We have now seen something of the early part of the 
stream and of the great men, cities and nations which 
grew up along its course. First arose great cities like 
Memphis and Babylon in the valleys of the Nile and the 
Tigro-Euphrates. Here man lived very simply. He was 
just working out an alphabet and the art of writing, and 
was making his first steps in literature, art, language, 
religion and government. Then as the stream flowed 
on westward, circling around the Mediterranean, the 
Phoenicians adopted the alphabet and the other useful 
things which the Old East had worked out, and through 
their trade scattered them around the Mediterranean 
coast as a farmer scatters seed on his fields. These 
things brought from the early nesting-places of civili- 
zation in the Orient furnished a foundation for the 
civilization of Greece, which thus by catching up the 

316 



THE TEUTONS LEARN SELF-GOVERNMENT 317 

best ideas of the past, and adding to them her great 
ideas of literature, art and philosophy, made Athens 
the mistress of the Mediterranean. The stream then 
flowed on westward to the Italian peninsula. Here 
Rome, starting like a spider in the center of Italy, 
industriously spun its web out farther and farther till 
it caught and drew to its center all of the peoples 
living in the Mediterranean basin. From these people, 
and especially from the Greeks, Rome learned the 
lessons of art and literature and philosophy, but in turn 
taught them lessons of government, teaching them, 
however, not so much how to rule themselves, as how 
to be ruled by Rome. The imperial city became the 
center of the world, toward which every man, city and 
province looked as the giver of peace and order, and as 
the regulator of every detail of life. Thus Rome added 
to the great stream of human history the idea of a strong 
central government, giving out rules and laws to a vast 
empire, having a population, at its greatest, of perhaps 
one hundred and twenty million people. 

But when the rude Teutons came through the passes 
of the Alps and gradually took possession of Rome, it 
looked for a time as if the stream of history was to be 
choked up and to flow no farther. It seemed as if the 
wealth and learning which had come down from the 
East, the art of Greece and the law of Rome, were all 
to be lost by the rude shocks of the uncivilized barbarian 
who at first seemed to care nothing for any of them. 
But slowly, and almost so noiselessly as not to be heard 
(except in time of intense persecution), the Christian 
missionary was opening up the channels through the 
Alps, so that the historical stream might flow northward 



318 SCHOOL HISTORY 

from the Mediterranean into western and northwestern 
Europe. 

Thus gradually through the monastery and the castle, 
as we saw in last year's work, and by the great move- 
ment of the Crusades and the Renascence, as we are 
to see in our work this year, were the channels opened 
so that all the great thoughts and ideas of the past 
might become the inheritance of the rude, uncultured 
children now ruling Europe. But these Teutons, who 
had spread as hunters, herders and fishers through the 
northern woods and valleys were not merely to have 
their lives enriched by coming to understand the great 
ideas of the past ; they themselves, notwithstanding they 
were rude and barbarous at first, had also ideas which 
were greatly to advance the modern history of man. 

The most important of these ideas was their strong 
love of individual freedom. When we were studying 
the early Germans last year, we saw how intense was 
their love of liberty. Every man liked to rule himself, 
or at least to have an equal share with everybody else 
in electing the chief who was to rule him. He insisted 
on having an equal share in the public land, in the 
spoils gained in war, and when he built his villages he 
placed the huts so far apart that every one could have 
plenty of elbow room. 

If the Teuton's love of individual liberty and local 
government as it was worked out in his " moot-court," 
could be preserved and added to Rome's great idea of 
a strong central government, then the modern European 
nations could build their foundations upon both ideas, 
— that is, they could have in the first place a strong 
central government to hold the people together and 



THE TEUTONS LEARN SELF-GOVERNMENT 319 

keep them in order, and keep off foreign enemies, and 
protect their commerce, and coin just one kind of 
money and the like ; and yet, in the second place, they 
could have an active local government, which would 
allow the people to have their little meetings and assem- 
blies near home where all could attend and take part 
in thinking out and making laws regulating their home 
affairs, such as dividing the land, pasturing the stock, 
building roads and the like. If both these ideas of 
government could be wisely united, a stronger and better 
kind of government than even Rome had developed, 
could be built up in the modern states. 

Now there were many nations which finally sprang 
up, more or less, out of the Teutonic tribes. Spain, 
France, Germany, Italy and England were all growing 
to be strong nations, at the close of the fifteenth century, 
— that is, at the time Columbus discovered America. 
But among all these, there was but one single nation at 
this time that had, through many hard struggles and 
through hundreds of years, held firmly and constantly 
to the Teutonic idea of individual liberty, and the right 
of a man to rule himself, either directly or indirectly, 
by electing those who were to rule him. 

This one nation was England. All the other great 
nations in Europe were slowly crushing the Teutonic 
spirit from their midst. This came about largely because 
the southern nations had sprung up on soil where the 
roots of the old Roman ideas of government were planted 
very deep and were therefore strong, and because these 
nations, living not so very far away from Rome, fre- 
quently thought of the great empire, and tried to 
build their governments upon the model worked out by 



320 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Rome, — that is, upon the idea of a strong central 
government ruled arbitrarily by one man. Spain and 
France in particular had crushed out all thought of the 
Teutonic idea of local self-government, and in neither 
country at the time of the discovery of America were 
there regular assemblies or a parliament for making laws 
to which the people could go themselves or send their 
representatives. 

But in England things grew very differently. Begin- 
ning in the fifth century (about 450) and continuing for 
six hundred years (1066, when William the Conqueror 
landed), swarm after swarm of Teutons invaded and 
settled in England. At first they went from northern 
Germany, — Angles, Saxons and Jutes, — and settling 
down in small groups, cleared a little land and divided 
it up just as they had done in the old German woods 
hundreds of years before. A few of the families living 
close together formed a township, and regulated their 
affairs in an assembly attended by all the freemen. 
Several of these townships, enough to furnish a hun- 
dred or so of warriors, formed what was called " The 
Hundred," which also had an assembly composed of 
representatives sent from the townships composing it. 
Then as time went on and there came to be but one 
king in England, the little kingdoms of former days, 
such as those of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, became 
shires, or, as we would say, counties. The county also, 
like the township and " The Hundred," had an assem- 
bly for attending to its affairs. 

As already said, many companies of Teutonic people 
went to the rich and beautiful island. It was a little 
like an island of corn in a vast stream covered with 



THE TEUTONS LEARN SELF-GOVERNMENT 32 1 

river-fowl, — flock after flock would light, feed, build 
their nests and hatch their broods upon it. So the rich 
soil and mild climate of England invited settlers. After 
the first of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes had gone 
to England, almost continuous groups of the same 
people followed through the fifth, sixth and seventh 
centuries, each helping to plant more firmly Teutonic 
customs and institutions. Then in the eighth and ninth 
centuries the Danes came in, and in the eleventh cen- 
tury came the brave, free seamen who had learned on 
the waves of the Northern waters the lessons of courage, 
independence and self-reliance. These were called the 
Northmen, or Normans. 

Before going into England, however, they had settled 
for a little time in northern France, and thus became 
acquainted with the language and culture of Rome, 
which, largely by means of the monastery and castle, 
had gradually spread itself through southern and cen- 
tral Europe. 

These Normans, as they were now called, crossed the 
channel, under the leadership of William the Conqueror* 
and in 1066 conquered the island. But they did not 
destroy or root up the Teutonic ideas of self-govern- 
ment which had been growing there for five or six 
hundred years before William's invasion of the island. 
But as soon as he had conquered the country, William 
did one thing which has been greatly to the advantage 
of England ever since, — he gave it a strong central 
government. He did not destroy the local governments 
which the Teutons so much liked, as the French and 
Spanish kings did in the centuries following this time, 
but he built up a strong central government in the 



322 SCHOOL HISTORY 

midst of them, to keep them in balance and to protect 
them against both internal strife and foreign ene- 
mies. Thus England adopted both ideas — Roman and 
Teuton — as the foundation stones upon which to build 
her institutions. And the great difference between 
English history and the history of all other nations in 
Europe from the eleventh century down to the present 
time is, that England has been much of the time as 
fierce and as watchful as a tiger of its young, that no 
one should destroy either of these great principles of 
government ; while other European nations have been 
content in the main to hold on to the idea of govern- 
ment as held by Rome. 

But we must not think this Teutonic principle 
of self-government grew in England without great 
struggle. Time and time again, kings arose in Eng- 
land who would have been delighted to crush it out, — 
kings who would levy taxes without consent of the 
people, and spend the money on expensive wars or to 
keep up an expensive court. 

One of the most arbitrary of these kings in early 
times, and one who cared least for the rights of the peo- 
ple, was King John. He was always needing money for 
one expensive thing after another, and always trying to 
get it by wringing it from the people in all kinds of 
oppressive ways. Finally the people, and especially 
the barons or lords, growing tired of this, armed them- 
selves and went against John. The king tried to de- 
fend himself with an army, but nearly everybody 
deserted him, and he was compelled, in 12 15 a.d., to 
sign an agreement with his people never to tax them 
again without their consent, never to imprison them 



THE TEUTONS LEARN SELF-GOVERNMENT 323 

without just cause, and to allow them to be tried by a 
jury when they were accused of wrong. This agree- 
ment is the most important document in English his- 
tory, and is called Magna Charta, or the Great Charter. 
It is written on parchment, consists of sixty-three short 
chapters or articles, and is most carefully preserved in 
the British Museum in London. 

The English people have never written a constitution 
all at one time and adopted it as their frame of govern- 
ment, as the United States did in 1 787-1 789; but from 
time to time they have written important documents 
and had their rulers assent to them, and these they 
regard as the foundation stones of their government 
and of their liberties. In English history there have 
been three of these very important documents : — 

1. Magna Charta, secured in 1215. 

2. The Petition of Right, passed by Parliament in 
1628. 

3. The Bill of Rights, passed by Parliament in 1689. 
Among several other things, all these great documents 

declare the following great principles of liberty : — 

1. No tax shall be levied upon any English subject 
without his consent. 

2. No one shall be imprisoned without cause being 
shown. 

3. When one is accused he shall have right of trial 
by jury. 

Now, to work out these principles and to get them 
firmly established in the minds of the English people 
took a full thousand years or more — that is, from the 
first settlements of the Angles and Saxons and Jutes 
on the English coast, about 450 a.d., when they were 



324 SCHOOL HISTORY 

planted in mere germ, down to 1689, when the Eng- 
lish people brought them to much fuller fruitage by- 
driving a very tyrannical king (James II) from the 
English throne and crowning William and Mary as 
king and queen on the condition that they would 
agree to the following principles : — 

1. Not to dispense with any laws without consent 
of Parliament. 

2. Not to raise any money except by consent of 
Parliament. 

3. Not to keep a standing army without consent of 
Parliament. 

4. To allow the people to bear arms without consent 
of Parliament. 

5. To allow the people to petition the king. 

6. To allow the freedom of debate in Parliament. 

7. To allow frequent meetings of Parliament. 

You see, from what the king and queen had to 
promise, they could >do nothing except what they were 
allowed to do by the English people, expressing them- 
selves through the great representative assembly called 
Parliament. And since the English Parliament has 
always been the greatest means by which the people 
have gained their rights and held on to their liberties, 
you must learn something about it. 

Parliament comes from a French word, " parler," 
which means " to speak," and it was so called because 
the English people came together in this body to speak, 
or debate, about the best ways of carrying on the 
affairs of the nation. In Magna Charta, to which as 
you remember King John agreed in 12 15, there was a 
provision that a council should be called to levy taxes 



THE TEUTONS LEARN SELF-GOVERNMENT 325 

whenever taxes were needed. The first council or 
parliament which was ever called of this kind in Eng- 
land was in 1265. It was called, not by the King him- 
self, but by one of his subjects, Simon de Montfort, for 
the purpose of curbing the King's tyranny. To this 
parliament were summoned the few nobles who were in 
sympathy with De Montfort, representatives of the large 
landowners and representatives of the people living in 
the large towns. Thirty years after this time, in 1295, 
when a great English King, Edward I, was needing 
money to carry on war against the Welsh and the 
Scotch he assembled a Parliament, in which all of the 
classes of English people were represented, to ask them 
to vote him money. 

In the first place there were summoned to this Par- 
liament both the great nobles, such as dukes, earls 
and counts, and the great churchmen, such as bishops 
and archbishops. Then, since there were too many 
small landowners to come in person, there were two 
representatives chosen from each county to represent 
the general body. Next, from each city there were 
two representatives chosen. Next, from each burgh, 
or borough, or large town, two representatives were 
chosen. The representatives from the cities and towns 
represented the merchants and mechanics. Thus all 
classes of the English people were represented in the 
Parliament. It was the first time that this had occurred 
in England, or in the history of the world, and so 
important was it, in working out the liberties and great- 
ness of England, that the great historian of the English 
people, John Richard Green, has called its assembling 
" the most important event in English history." 



326 SCHOOL HISTORY 

From this time forward Parliament grew step by 
step, sometimes having hard struggles when a king or 
queen sat on the throne who was disposed to rule 
without regard to the people's rights. But as the 
people grew in knowledge and self-reliance, their rep- 
resentatives in Parliament grew in courage, in love of 
liberty, and in willingness to risk their lives if necessary 
to keep those great Teutonic principles guaranteed by 
Magna Charta from being destroyed. 

Now all of this long growth of liberty from the 
German forests up to England, and for ten centuries 
in England, is of the greatest importance to us who 
live in the United States ; for the germs and roots of 
the political liberties which we enjoy, as we have already 
seen, are buried deep in the history of our ancestors 
in England and our still older ancestors in the German 
forests. 

When the New World was discovered, three great 
nations stood on the western coast of Europe and 
launched their ships toward the west, — Spain, France 
and England. The one which most fully represented 
all of the best and greatest principles of education, reli- 
gion, government, industry and social freedom worked 
out by the world up to that time, would in all proba- 
bility win the race in the struggle for the New World. 

As already said, one of these nations only had been 
able to plant, nourish and develop in its political life the 
idea that every man should have the right to rule him- 
self. England, by working out township and ''hun- 
dred " and county assemblies, and by developing that 
greatest agent of liberty of the last five hundred years 
— the Parliament, — had given herself many centuries 



THE TEUTONS LEARN SELF-GOVERNMENT 327 

of schooling in self-government. This schooling had 
strengthened her people for the great undertakings in 
gaining wealth, culture, art, literature and free politi- 
cal life, which make England to-day as great as any 
nation on the earth. Hence when the English crossed 
the Atlantic in the seventeenth century and began to 
plant townships in New England, counties in Virginia, 
and legislatures in all of the colonies, she was sowing 
in the new soil ideas which had been ripening through 
many centuries in the old. And then later, when, at 
the time of our Revolutionary War, an arbitrary Eng- 
lish king, George III, tried to stamp out this Teutonic 
love of self-government, it was the voice of Burke and 
Pitt in the English Parliament and of Samuel Adams 
and Otis and Patrick Henry in the legislative hall of 
the colonies and in the Stamp Act Congress (both the 
natural outgrowth of free Teutonic institutions) which 
did such great service in saving the principle of self- 
government for the whole English race — for England 
as well as America. Thus we see how old are the 
germs of the free institutions of our own country, and 
how impossible it would be for us to have them had it 
not been for our brave Teutonic-English ancestors who 
struggled to save and develop these liberties, hundreds 
of years before our country was discovered. 

References 

Guest: Lectures on English History; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Larned: History of England; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., N.Y. 
Green : The History of the English People, 4 vols. ; Harper & Bros., 

N.Y. 
Green : A Short History of the English People ; Harper & Bros., 

N.Y. 



328 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Kendall : Source Book of English History; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 
Higginson and Channing : English History for American Readers ; 

Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 
Tappan : England's Story ; Holt & Co., N.Y. 
Adams : Civilization During the Middle Ages ; Harper & Bros., 

N.Y. 
Duruy : History of the Middle Ages ; Holt & Co., N.Y. 
Dickens : A Child's History of England ; Appleton & Co., N.Y. 
Gardner : A Student's History of England ; Longmans, Green & 

Co., N.Y. 
MacDonagh : The Book of Parliament ; Isbister & Co., London. 
Directors of Old South Work : 
Magna Charta, . . Leaflet 5.^ 
The Bill of Rights, . " 19. j- Boston, Mass. 
The Petition of Right, " 23. J 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 
See articles in good cyclopedias on Magna Charta, Parliament, 

Petition of Right and Bill of Rights. 
Study the lives of Alfred, William the Conqueror, Simon de Mon- 

fort, Edward I, Hampden. Cromwell, William III, Pitt, Burke, 

Bright, Beaconsfield, Gladstone. Study Magna Charta, The 

Petition of Right and Bill of Rights. 



HOW THE ART OF GREECE AND ROME 
WAS HANDED FORWARD TO WESTERN 
EUROPE THROUGH, THE RENASCENCE 
MOVEMENT 

I350-I550 A.D. 

The first part of the word renascence (re) means 
again; and the second part (nascence) means to be 
bom. So the meaning of the whole word, renascence, 
is, to be born again, or to spring up into new life. 
You have no doubt often watched the leaves come out 
in the springtime after the trees looked dead and bare 
for a long time during the winter months. These are 
not the same leaves as those that were there the year 
before. With the warm sun and early showers of 
spring, fresh sap has run up the body of the tree, and 
new leaves have been born. The renascence was a 
period of time, extending through the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries, during which there was a new birth, 
of learning, in the minds of the European people. It 
was the European springtime which followed the Cru- 
sades, in which the old life of Greece and Rome 
blossomed out into great beauty, and gave a freer, 
richer life .to the countries of western Europe, as we 
shall presently see. 

You remember, in the study of the monastic life we saw 
that the monks copied a great deal, and that what they 
copied and recopied on those musty sheets of goat and 

329 



330 SCHOOL HISTORY 

calf skin was handed down to the people of later ages. 
You remember, too, that in the monastery were schools 
for boys. This shows that some persons were interested 
somewhat in learning. But the monastery was about the 
only place where there was any great interest in learn- 
ing in those early days, and even the monks were fre- 
quently not greatly interested in the old writings which 
they spent a lifetime in copying. They copied some- 
times because they were required to do so, and often for 
the sake merely of having something to do. People out- 
side the monastery knew nothing of books, perhaps 
ninety-nine out of every hundred would have been un- 
able to read the language which they spoke, and not 
one common man in a thousand could read Latin, which 
was the language in which the books were written. The 
monks generally knew nothing of the learning or lit- 
erature of the Greeks, because they could not under- 
stand the Greek language, just as you and I to-day do 
not understand the literature of the Chinese or the Ara- 
bians, until some one translates it for us, because we 
do not understand their language. 

We learned also in the third and fourth grades that 
the Greeks and Romans wrote a great deal, and that 
some of the very best thoughts of to-day have been 
handed down to us from the pens of those old scholars. 
Some of the greatest poets, painters, sculptors and 
philosophers that ever lived were to be found among 
the ancient Greeks and Romans, such as Homer and 
Virgil, Plato, Socrates and Phidias. 

The flame of this brilliant civilization slowly died 
down, both in Greece and Rome, before those countries 
fell, but when the Germans, with their ignorance and 



THE TEUTONS LEARN ART AND LITERATURE 331 

spirit of conquest, went down and conquered Rome in 
the fifth century after Christ, it seemed that the flicker- 
ing flame of culture would be wholly smothered out. 
But the monastery and the Mohammedan schools in 
Europe had kept sparks of it alive from 500 to 1400 
a.d., and now in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 
it was to be fanned into a flame and to burst forth with 
a brighter light than ever. The stir that was set up in 
Europe by the Crusades resulted in a great increase in 
the activity of the minds of the people, and greatly 
broadened their knowledge. Colleges and schools 
began to rise, and men's minds began to long for greater 
freedom. They learned from visiting the universities of 
the Arabians that there were people in the world who 
were better educated than they, and had a hundredfold 
more of the comforts and luxuries of life. Stimulated 
by this, Europe began to shake off the torpor that had 
benumbed her mind, and to take on a more active 
life. 

The greatest stir in this new thought first came about 
in Italy, partly because of the good position she held 
with regard to the commerce of the world ; then like a 
river which gradually fills full of water to overflowing, 
the new stream of learning rose to such a height in 
Italy that, during the century in which Columbus lived, 
it flowed northward through the passes of the Alps and 
spread out over all western Europe. 

This movement first began to show itself in the in- 
creased interest which men took in the literature of the 
Greeks and the Romans, and also in the study of 
nature. The men who were leaders in the movement 
were usually men of wealth and ease. They were thus 



332 SCHOOL HISTORY 

able to travel and search for books themselves, as well 
as to employ others to search for them. 

An Italian by the name of Petrarch was an early 
leader of the renascence. He lived from 1304 to 
1374. He felt the beauty of nature about him and 
had an intense desire to possess the writings of the 
whole ancient world. He wanted a broader view of 
life and the world than one could get shut up in a 
cell. It is said that he was the first man to climb a 
mountain for the mere pleasure of the journey and the 
delight of the scene from the top. He was a most 
enthusiastic collector of manuscripts and books and 
wrote some poetry. His father, wishing him to be a 
lawyer, had him spend much time in the libraries of 
the lawyers. Here he learned Latin, in which the 
law-books were written, but he studied very little law, 
He read with delight the writings of the old Latin 
poets and scholars. One day his father found a stack 
of books under the bed, and when he found that his 
son had been reading literature instead of law, he 
threw the books into the fire. The boy was so "hurt 
by the unkindness of his father that he began to cry. 
The father then snatched a volume of Cicero and a 
volume of Virgil from the flames and gave them back 
to the boy. He grew up to be a great scholar, and 
the interest which his Latin writings excited, his let- 
ters to friends and his enthusiastic studies caused other 
Italians to turn their attention to the ancient classics. 
By the ancient classics is meant the literature of the 
old Greeks and Romans. Petrarch influenced another 
great man of his time, Boccaccio, to study Greek and 
to become a writer. He became one of the greatest 



THE TEUTONS LEARN ART AND LITERATURE 333 

writers of the Renascence period, and like Petrarch 
greatly helped to spread among scholars a love for 
the great writings of Greece and Rome. Students of 
the fifteenth century followed in their steps and con- 
tinued the collection of manuscripts. Some traveled 
to Constantinople, to read in the libraries and to learn 
Greek of the many excellent scholars who lived and 
taught there. Some founded libraries at home, and 
some lectured in universities. These men were called 
humanists, by which is meant persons who have great 
interest in all past human life of whatever country or 
age, but more especially of the Greek and Roman life. 

Petrarch and Boccaccio lived much of the time in 
Florence, which was the center of this new movement 
in learning. Florence is a city in northern Italy, and 
at the beginning of the fifteenth century was the 
wealthiest city in Europe. There were twenty-three 
banks ; many retail shops of silk and woolen goods ; 
workshops for artists in marble, gold and precious 
stones ; there were two hundred and seventy ware- 
houses engaged in the woolen trade alone, and many 
other thriving industries. This immense commerce 
produced many rich families in Florence, who, when 
they became wealthy, began to build fine churches, 
public buildings, and costly palaces in which to live 
and worship. In imitation of the Greeks- and Romans 
they wished to make these buildings and the gardens 
and yards about them luxurious and beautiful, so they 
began to employ sculptors and painters who could 
make beautiful statues for the buildings and paint 
beautiful pictures upon the walls and ceilings of the 
palaces and cathedrals. This led a great number of 



334 SCHOOL HISTORY 

men to turn their attention to the study of painting 
and sculpture. These artists naturally turned to the 
work of the old Greeks and Romans, and especially to 
the Greeks, to get their models, for, as we have learned, 
no people ever surpassed the Greeks as artists. 

There lived in Florence at the beginning of the fif- 
teenth century a very wealthy family known as the Medici 
family. They were bankers and carried on commerce 
with nearly all parts of the world. The members of 
this family were likewise great lovers of art. Thus their 
immense wealth and their artistic taste both together 
well fitted them for collecting manuscripts and speci- 
mens of art from all quarters of the earth. Wherever 
they found a rare manuscript or a fine piece of art, 
they had money with which to buy it. They built 
splendid palaces, fine libraries and gorgeous chapels. 
Lorenzo de' Medici, called Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
was greatly interested in art, and spent much time and 
money in collecting old manuscripts, pictures, statues 
and other relics, and in encouraging men to study art 
of all kinds. He lived about 1400 a.d., and many of 
those men who wished to study painting and sculpture 
went to his library. Some of the greatest painters 
that ever lived were first encouraged by him. Among 
these was Michael Angelo, who was as great a lover of 
the sculpture of Greece as Petrarch and Boccaccio were 
of the literature. Michael Angelo is regarded as the 
greatest sculptor of modern times. 

Another man who lived about the time of Lorenzo 
and became intensely interested in collecting books 
and old relics was Niccolo de' Niccoli. He was the 
son of a merchant in Florence and inherited a modest 



THE TEUTONS LEARN ART AND LITERATURE 335 

fortune. He gave up all business and devoted him- 
self entirely to the collection of manuscripts and objects 
of art. He spent all he had in buying books and 
sometimes even went in debt for more. He came to 
have the best private library in Florence, having it is 
said eight hundred manuscripts, which was regarded 
a large library for that day. Many of these books 
were very rare, being in some cases the only copies 
existing in the world. Such copies were often worth 
vast sums of money. Niccoli also had a small col- 
lection of gems, statues, coins and pictures. He is 
said to have known more about manuscripts than any 
other man of his time. All the great men of his day 
wrote to him for information. He was much more 
generous with his library than most men of his time, 
being the first collector who permitted his manuscripts 
to be copied by others ; and it is said that at his death 
there were two hundred of his copies loaned out. 
His house was always open and was a sort of free 
school for scholars and artists. At times there would 
be a dozen or so young men quietly reading in the 
library, while he would walk about the room, giving 
instruction or asking questions about what they read. 

But Petrarch, Lorenzo and Niccoli were only three 
of the many men who spent much time and money in 
searching the world for manuscripts and relics of art. 
Men were hired to go in search of manuscripts, gems 
and specimens of ancient classical art, and there was 
no lack of men who were willing to go. These book- 
hunters and art-hunters ransacked the old monasteries 
from cellar to garret for the manuscripts of the monks. 
Some went to the temples of Greece, and others to the 



336 SCHOOL HISTORY 

museums of Constantinople. As the Crusading Knights 
spent the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in trying 
to rescue the tomb of the Savior from unholy hands, 
and were thrice blest if they returned with relics from 
Jerusalem, so these Knights of the New Learning spent 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in bringing from 
their musty tombs the remains of the great geniuses of 
Greece and Rome. Every corner of Europe and the 
East was ransacked for manuscripts, and whatever was 
found was purchased and brought back to Italy. Some 
of the manuscripts were brown with age, so old, indeed, 
that the writing on them was very dim. But no abbey, 
or monastery, or library, or museum was so far away, 
and no manuscripts so moldy, that these enthusiastic 
scholars did not joyfully search them out and feel 
repaid if, in years of quest, they could show for their 
labors some old copy of Cicero, or some ancient copies 
of the Greek poets and philosophers, which opened anew 
to them the delights and culture of the classical world. 

Now, since they were so earnest in finding old manu- 
scripts, you will be interested to know what they did 
with them when found. Some copied them on fresh 
pieces of paper, or parchment, bound them into books, 
and put them into their private libraries, while others 
made copies of books to sell to those of wealth and to 
the universities. Some men came after a while to own 
large libraries, — not what would be called large libraries 
to-day, but large for that time. Every book was written 
with pen and ink, for in the first part of the Renas- 
cence time nothing was yet known of printing. 

Students from other countries, who had caught the 
enthusiasm started by Petrarch, longed to have libraries 



THE TEUTONS LEARN ART AND LITERATURE 337 

of their own, so they came to the libraries of these 
Italian scholars and sometimes spent years in copying 
books. These copies they carried home with them. 
Think what labor and patience it cost a student in that 
day to get a valuable book, say Homer, or the Bible, as 
compared with the present time, when either may be had 
for fifty cents. So, at the beginning of this period of 
which we are studying, about 1400 a.d., could we have 
been in Italy, we might have seen men starting out in all 
directions from Florence, and from other centers of learn- 
ing, generally on foot, to hunt for manuscripts and relics 
of art ; others returning with a load of waxen tablets and 
musty sheets of parchment under their arms or strapped 
to their backs ; others going empty handed toward Italy, 
to copy these manuscripts and carry them back home. 

Thus, you see, the first work of the Renascence was, 
in the main, to get together collections of ancient writ- 
ings, and distribute them slowly to a few other scholars 
by means of copies made by hand. 

But what was all this material worth if it could not 
be read ? Most scholars in the early Renascence period 
could read Latin, for the monasteries had taught Latin, 
and all books in western Europe were written in that lan- 
guage ; but there were very few in western Europe at that 
time who could read Greek. How to read the Greek 
language, was the next question which they set about to 
answer. As already said, Petrarch induced Boccaccio 
to study Greek. This he did enthusiastically, but never 
became a good Greek scholar. Many others followed 
him, inspired by his example. One great difficulty was 
that they had no encyclopedias, dictionaries, or gram- 
mars as we have now, so you can imagine what a hard 



338 SCHOOL HISTORY 

task they had when they began to interpret the Greek 
poets, philosophers and historians. The task was both 
a hard and a long one, but step by step Greek scholars 
began to appear in the West. Some students, in their 
enthusiasm, went to Greece to learn the language there, 
just as we would have to do to-day if the Greeks were 
the only people in the world who understood Greek, 
and there were no books to help us in the study of that 
language. When the Turks took Constantinople, in 
1453, many Greeks went to Italy and. carried with them 
Greek grammars, dictionaries and manuscripts. Some 
of these men were hired to teach literature in the 
schools and universities of Italy, while some traveled 
about from town to town, giving lectures upon Plato, 
Aristotle, Herodotus, Homer and others. Thousands 
of people eagerly listened to these lectures and took 
notes upon what they heard. In this way learning and 
the passion for the old classical life were diffused 
throughout Italy. 

All this study produced, in the fifteenth century, a 
number of great scholars, who became experts in using 
the learned languages. These scholars began to sift 
and classify and explain the great mass of material 
which they had collected. They found many mistakes 
which had been made in copying, especially in the 
Latin writings produced in the monasteries during the 
most ignorant times of the Middle Ages. Many of the 
old books had been copied and recopied several times, 
and each time they were recopied new mistakes had 
crept in. Some of the monks were very careful in 
their copying, while others were just as careless. This 
led the scholars to say, " We'll gb back to the original 



THE TEUTONS LEARN ART AND LITERATURE 339 

copy and find out just what the first writer actually said 
and thought about this or that thing." They thus 
began to compare the earliest manuscripts they could 
find with the later ones. 

Thus they began to be critical and independent in 
their thought, and when this habit grew and spread it 
produced a great expansion and stir and independence 
in men's minds. The universities and lower schools, 
the church, the governments, science, art, literature, — 
everything began to feel that a new life was warming 
Europe and opening up new views, as truly as the 
sunshine opens the buds in the springtime. The old 
Greek thought was far freer and richer in many ways 
than the views which had been taught in the monas- 
tery during the Middle Ages. Some of these scholars 
began to study the governments under which they lived, 
and in some cases to criticise their tyranny and oppres- 
sion. Others began to study nature, especially the 
stars and the motions of the earth, and to say that 
people had been taught wrong ideas about the universe. 
" The earth is round," they said, "instead of flat, and 
revolves around the sun instead of the sun revolving 
around it." "The sun, and not the earth, is the center 
of the universe." These are a few of the most impor- 
tant things they began to think and say, and to be 
much criticised for saying, for it took a long while to 
get most people to believe them. Growing out of 
this new idea of the shape and motion of the earth was 
the courageous and self-reliant trip of Columbus across 
the Atlantic, in which he discovered the New World. 

These students of Greek and Roman literature like- 
wise began to study Hebrew literature found in the 



340 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Bible, and to say, " Now here are certain traditions and 
ideas about religion that have been taught by religious 
teachers which we believe are not true. The teachers 
of the time have been studying copies of the Bible in 
which there were many mistakes. The only right 
method of gaining a true knowledge of Christianity is 
to go to the original sources of it." Thus in some cases 
they began to attack some of the teachings and prac- 
tices of the church. Some of the monasteries had be- 
come hiding-places for immoral men, others had become 
places of idleness. Some of the monks and bishops 
had become corrupt and were not living simple, unselfish 
lives such as was the custom in the early Church. Peo- 
ple were not allowed to worship freely in the way they 
thought best, as we can all do now, and they were 
required in many cases to pay a very high tax for the 
support of the Church. Those who were growing more 
independent began to criticise these practices quite fear- 
lessly. One of the leaders, who made very witty and 
stinging criticisms, was an eminent scholar by the name of 
Erasmus. In his criticisms he did not spare kings, popes, 
or bishops, but spoke his mind very freely. About 1516 
he made a Greek copy of the New Testament, and 
pointed out many errors in the Latin New Testament, 
which was the one used through the Middle Ages. 
Criticism of the traditions, doctrines and practices of 
the members of the Church, like these we have just 
spoken about, finally led some members of the Church 
to leave it and establish another branch of the Chris- 
tian Church, called the Protestant, meaning by Protes- 
tant that they protested against the ideas and practices 
we have just been speaking about. 



THE TEUTONS LEARN ART AND LITERATURE 341 

Thus far in our study of the Renascence, we have 
seen that the libraries in Italy became beehives for 
scholars and artists, and that there grew up there many 
men who were skillful in the use of both the Greek and 
the Latin languages, and that many other persons were 
no less skilled in using the brush and the chisel. 
If we could have visited the palaces of one of those 
wealthy merchants, say Lorenzo the Magnificent, in 
the fifteenth century, we would have seen, in addition 
to the library, statues of marble in the splendid halls, 
the rarest paintings on the walls, carved furniture 
and the richest tapestries ornamenting the rooms ; and 
the tables laden with rare porcelains, glassware and 
gold and silver plate. 

How different from all this was the home of the plain, 
sturdy Teuton, who lived all his years on a little farm 
in some quiet valley or in a little hut on the mountain side. 
For a long time the happier, brighter life which the 
Renascence was bringing to Europe did not touch his life. 
He had no books, no pictures, no statues to ornament his 
home, and in most cases only the chairs and furniture 
which he had rudely worked out by hand. How was 
he ever to get into touch with this new-blossoming life ? 
How could the new learning which was coming to the 
palaces of the wealthy and well-born be given forth so 
that the cottages of the common people would become 
happier because the newer and freer thought had entered 
them. Just at the time when this new life was budding 
and many people were beginning to thirst for new 
knowledge, a means was invented for multiplying, cheap- 
ening and spreading it, so that everybody — rich and 
poor alike — might share in its uplifting influence. 



342 SCHOOL HISTORY 

About 1450 the printing press was invented, and this 
machine finally came to be the greatest means in 
modern times for spreading the new learning over the 
entire world. We learned in the early grades how the 
Egyptians wrote on stone and papyrus, the Babylonians 
on bricks, the Greeks and Romans on wax tablets and 
parchment, and the monks of the Middle Ages on 
parchment, or vellum. During the Crusades the Euro- 
peans learned from the Arabians how to make paper, 
so that, at the time the printing press came into use, 
paper was becoming plentiful. Paper soon became 
much cheaper than parchment, and by this means the 
poor as well as the rich came to have cheap writing- 
material. Not only this, but cheaper paper greatly en- 
couraged printing, and with the printing press, when it 
was perfected, a thousand books could be made in the 
time which it had taken to make one when all the work 
was done by hand. 

But we must not think that the printing press sprang 
into existence all at once. Like the steamboat, the 
telegraph, and all great inventions, it had its infancy, 
and it took many years for it to grow into the perfect 
and complex machine that it is to-day. If you would 
take a wooden block and with penknife carve your 
name upon it so that the letters would be raised, then 
smear ink over the letters and stamp your name upon a 
piece of paper, you would see what the printing press 
was like in its very beginnings. 

The first printers had presses made entirely of wood, 
and as a rule printed but one page at a time. The 
wooden board into which the type were set, was fas- 
tened to the end of a wooden screw, which worked in a 



THE TEUTONS LEARN ART AND LITERATURE 343 

hole in the frame very much like the large screw works 
in a cider press. The sheets of paper upon which the 
printing was done were placed upon a flat, level surface 
underneath the board that held the type. Ink was then 
smeared over the type, after which the type was pressed 
down upon the paper by turning the screw in which 
was fastened a wooden handle. There were generally 
two men to one press, one who daubed two big soft 
balls, soaked with ink, over all the type, and another 
who placed the paper in place and turned the screw. 
We can easily see that when they had the type set for 
printing a page, they could print many pages in the 
same time that it took them to write a single one with 
pen and ink. 

But the printing press was a long time in growing to 
a stage where it was of much use. It required careful 
and skillful workmen to prepare the type ; and it was 
many years before men were able to make type smooth 
enough so that when they were set and ready for print- 
ing they would press down upon the paper alike. If 
one letter was a little longer than the others, a blot was 
sure to be made in printing. It was also quite a long 
time before an ink was invented that would work satis- 
factorily in printing. The chemistry which the Cru- 
saders learned from the Arabs finally helped them to a 
successful ink. 

When a machine that would print well was finally 
perfected, a whole book could be printed more quickly 
than a single page could be written by hand, and it was 
not long until printed copies of the old parchments, of 
the tablets, of the Bible, and criticisms upon these by 
great scholars, were scattered over all Europe. We 



344 SCHOOL HISTORY 

can scarcely realize what a change this must have 
made ; but suppose there were no books in our state 
except at the state capital and a few of the other 
large cities, and that if we wanted a copy, say of Rob- 
inson Crusoe, or the Bible, we should have to go to one 
of these towns and read it, or sit down with pen and 
ink and copy it, do you suppose that many people would 
have books ? Certainly not. But with the invention of 
printing, things were greatly changed. The printing 
press meant that everybody could have books, and 
when everybody came to have them they began to want 
to learn how to read them. Thus universities were 
increased, and finally people in the most advanced 
countries began to build schoolhouses, where the chil- 
dren of all classes could go and learn to read. In fact 
the very schoolhouses in which we ourselves are study- 
ing, and the things we study in them, came to us largely 
through the Renascence and the printing press. 

Thus it came about that this culture and learning of 
which we have been speaking was no longer confined 
to a few universities and a few wealthy men, but began 
to be given out to all classes. This meant greater 
liberty of thought and speech and more abundant life 
for all. It meant a stronger national life for those 
nations which could take it up, for learning and culture 
are a strength and safeguard to the life of a people 
in even a truer sense than forts and armies are. An 
ignorant nation is likely to be a weak nation. 

There was another thing which came into use in the 
middle of the fourteenth century, which did very much 
toward freeing the common people and preparing them 
to take advantage of the new thought and life of the 



THE TEUTONS LEARN ART AND LITERATURE 345 

Renascence. This was gunpowder, which had been 
introduced into Europe from the East by the Crusaders. 
The use of gunpowder in firearms made it possible for 
the common people to fight on an equality with the 
nobility, since a peasant could handle a gun as well as a 
lord. Before gunpowder was used the great barons, 
being better armed, could, if they chose, go out among 
their neighbors, steal or plunder what they wanted, re- 
turn and shut themselves in their strongly fortified castles, 
where they would be safe from all attacks. Men often 
tried to make machines with which to batter down the 
walls of the castle, but it required a great amount of 
work to make them, and when made they were very 
uncertain. When gunpowder came into use the peas- 
ants could stand off at a distance, and with cannon 
easily knock down the walls of the stately castle. The 
castle down, the peasant with a gun was able to defend 
himself from the lord and to demand greater justice 
from him. 

Gunpowder also aided in producing in the lower and 
middle classes a number of people who had leisure, 
and who therefore could have time for studying the new 
literature and art which the Renascence was producing. 
Before gunpowder was invented, during the feudal 
times, every man had to hold himself in readiness to 
go to war whenever his lord or king called upon him. 
When artillery came into use, it was found that a small 
army with firearms could accomplish as much as all 
the people formerly could with bows and arrows, 
especially if the small army were well drilled. Thus 
it came about that, instead of compelling every man to 
hold himself in readiness, each nation created a standing 



346 SCHOOL HISTORY 

army, — that is, an army which was paid by the nation 
and was always kept in readiness for war. The stand- 
ing army was also partly brought about by the fact 
that many men could not afford to buy guns when gun- 
powder came into use. Thus many of the common 
people were set free to look after their affairs at home 
and to accumulate wealth. Wealth led to leisure, and 
this in turn gradually gave an opportunity for many in 
all classes to take up the new learning, to build more 
comfortable homes, and to surround themselves with 
the beautiful and refining influences of ancient Greece 
and Rome, now spreading all over Europe by means of 
that greatest invention, perhaps, ever made by man, 
— the printing press. 

Thus you see how, in the two hundred years from 
1350 to 1550 a.d., the Teuton of southern Europe came 
fully to appreciate the rich inheritance left him by 
Greece and Rome ; and having come to appreciate it, 
carried it forward from southern into northern and 
western Europe, and by means of university, printing 
press, book and, finally, newspaper, gave it out to the 
poor as well as to the rich. From this time forward, a 
nation, to.be strong itself and to produce strong men 
able to compete with others, must give free develop- 
ment to these great agents of freedom. The nation 
which does this will have a continual re-birth (Renas- 
cence) by the new life which flows into it ; the nation 
that closes up these currents which bring new life will 
sicken, weaken and die. 



THE TEUTONS LEARN ART AND LITERATURE 347 

References 

Seebohm : Era of the Protestant Revolution. Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

Histories of Middle Ages as already given. 

Lacroix : Science and Literature in the Middle Ages (well illus- 
trated). Virtue & Co., London. 

Field : An Introduction to the Study of the Renaissance ; Scrib- 
ner's Sons, N.Y. 

Burckhardt : The Renaissance in Italy; Macmillan & Co., N.Y. 

Petrarch : Correspondence with Boccaccio and Other Friends ; Put- 
nam's Sons, N.Y. 

Kemp : Outline of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 
& Co., Boston. 

See articles in good cyclopedias on Renascence, Revival of Learn- 
ing, Invention of Printing, Invention of Gunpowder. 

Study the lives of Petrarch, Lorenzo de' Medici. Raphael, Michael 
Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Gutenberg, Galileo, Henry the 
Navigator, Columbus. 



HOW THE REFORMATION CAME ABOUT, 
AND HOW IT INFLUENCED HISTORY 
IN EUROPE AND AMERICA 

1550-1650 A.D. 

The word Reformation comes from two Latin words, 
"formare," meaning to form, and "re," again. Thus 
the word means to form again. Now we wish to see 
what was formed again, or made over, and where it was 
done, a.nd when. 

You have already seen how the Renascence woke up 
southern Europe from her slumber, and set the scholars 
hunting up old books and writing new ones ; and how, 
before the Renascence, the Crusades brought new life 
to commerce, and made Europe and Asia join hands 
by means of great trade routes which extended from 
one end of the Mediterranean to the other. Now, just 
as broader ideas were coming to the minds of men in 
trade and learning, so also were many persons getting 
finer and fresher ideas about religion ; and these new 
ideas led to new life in the Christian Church, or Cath- 
olic Church, as it was then called, since its ideal was 
to spread Christianity over the entire world. 

The period when the idea of reforming the Church 
took hold of the people so deeply that they talked and 
struggled for it more than for any other one thing was the 
sixteenth century ; that is, the century just following the 
discovery of America. But we must keep our minds 

348 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 349 

free from thinking that the Reformation sprang up all 
at once, as a mushroom springs up, so to speak, during 
the night. Instead of this, everything which helped to 
open the minds of people to new thought for four or 
five centuries before the sixteenth was a step which 
led, either directly or indirectly, to the Reformation. 
Let us very briefly review these steps and see how 
they lead to this one common point. 

First, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
came the Crusades ; and these two hundred years of 
travel between Europe and Asia wonderfully opened 
the eyes and minds of the travelers, as travel generally 
does ; then came, as a result of acquaintance with the 
lands around the Mediterranean, a passionate love for 
the old literature — especially for Greek and Latin lit- 
erature ; this began in the fourteenth century, and no 
manuscript was too musty, or dim, or too hard to read, 
to keep the scholars from cleaning the dust off of it 
and reading it ; thus the springs of Greek and Roman 
thought began to flow again and refresh the minds of 
western Europe ; then, right in the middle of the Renas- 
cence movement (1453), the barbaric Turks, in moving 
westward from Asia, conquered Contantinople, which 
had been for a thousand years the storehouse of much 
of the old Greek writing. This drove the scholars west- 
ward, but as they went they carried with them their 
precious manuscripts as a miser would his gold ; thus 
was Europe further enriched by what the old times had 
to teach, and thousands of scholars began to study the 
history, the literature, the philosophy and the art of old 
Greece and Rome ; then, as we have already seen, print- 
ing was invented about 1445, which opened the doors to 



350 SCHOOL HISTORY 

a higher and finer life to common people, as the univer- 
sities had opened new realms of thought to the well- 
born. Then came the difficulty about paper, for the 
materials out of which paper was made, and especially 
parchment, had grown so scarce and costly that the 
price of books was as high as ever ; but with the inven- 
tion of linen paper, about 1300, and the immediate 
growth thereafter of the paper-making trade, the cost 
of books was greatly reduced, which made it possible 
for more people to have them. 

You might think now that with the printing press and 
cheap paper secured, all the people would have books 
and be able to read and study them. But you must 
remember that the books were written mostly in Greek 
and Latin, and that not many at this time could read 
Latin, while very few indeed could read Greek. To 
overcome this difficulty, learned scholars who could read 
these languages gathered at the great university centers 
which had grown up in Europe mainly during the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and began to teach 
the Greek and Latin languages and literature to the 
scholars who could come to them. So, notwithstanding 
the fact that the great mass of the people could not 
read the ancient classics, and only a few, comparatively, 
could go to the universities, yet what was discussed 
there was more fully and freely discussed than it had 
been in the monastic schools, and as these new ideas 
slowly trickled down among the people, the great mass 
gradually came to know and think about them, and 
catch glimpses of a freer life. 

It was the custom too, in that day, for the scholars 
to pass from one university to another, spending say a 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 351 

year or so in Oxford in England, then another in Paris 
or Orleans in France, thence on to Prague or Heidel- 
berg in Germany, and then on to Padua or some other 
great university in Italy. In this way the new thought 
which was taught at any one university would soon be 
scattered more or less all over Europe. 

Some of the earliest scholars who attended several of 
the great universities lived in England. They studied 
first at Oxford and then went to Italy, where the oppor- 
tunity was especially good for learning Greek and 
Latin. John Colet was one of these scholars. He was 
the son of a lord mayor of London and inherited a for- 
tune from his father ; but after studying much in Italy, 
he returned to England and spent his life and fortune 
in trying to give his country a simple Christianity based 
on the Golden Rule, and also a better opportunity for 
the common people to educate themselves. He estab- 
lished a school in London for boys, taught it himself, 
and even wrote the text-books which the children 
studied. 

Thomas More was another great scholar of the time. 
He especially helped on the movement toward freer 
thought by writing a book, " Utopia," in which he de- 
scribed the manners and customs of an ideal country : 
in this country the people should elect their own officers, 
make their own laws, carry on very little war, all be 
able to read and write, and all be well off instead of 
having the wealth in the hands of kings, princes and 
lords, as was the case to a great extent in all European 
countries at that time. 

Still another very learned scholar was Erasmus, 
whom we learned something about when studying the 



352 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Renascence. He was an orphan and poor. In youth 
he had been placed in a monastery by his guardians, 
but when he came of age he left the monastery, and by 
giving lessons to private pupils gained the means to se- 
cure an excellent education at the University of Paris ; 
then he went to Oxford and became a fellow-pupil of 
Colet and More, possessing with them a passionate love 
for Greek, Latin and the literature of the Romans and 
Greeks. But he, like others, was not satisfied till he 
had traveled to Italy and studied under the great 
teachers who taught there. While he was in Italy he 
was near Rome, — the very head of the Church, — and 
observed how worldly many of its officers had become, 
the way they mixed themselves up with political mat- 
ters, and gave their time to striving for power, pleasure 
and money. A man as learned as Erasmus was sure to 
hate such trifling with religious matters as he saw in 
many of the clergy, and as he rode back through Europe 
from Italy toward England on horseback, he devised 
a plan for rebuking them for their trifling and vice. 
When he came to his old friend, Thomas More, in 
London, he stopped for a time before going on to Cam- 
bridge University, where he was to teach Greek. In 
More's house he wrote a book, " The Praise of Folly," 
in which he very wittily ridiculed teachers and preach- 
ers who knew but little but pretended to know every- 
thing. He described monks as shut out of heaven 
because they had grown to be trifling and lazy ; and he 
even criticised the Pope, Julius II, by saying that in- 
stead of " leaving all " as St. Peter did, he was trying 
by war and conquest to add continually to St. Peter's 
possessions. This book, which was, perhaps, sometimes 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 353 

too severe in what it said about both monks and popes, 
was printed and sold broadcast, and many people opened 
their eyes to the weak spots Erasmus pointed out, and 
began to laugh at the follies which he held up to ridicule. 

Then Erasmus went on to Cambridge University, and 
for years taught and studied Greek, till he wrote a book 
which did more than any other one thing to give new and 
fresh thought to his time. This was the New Testa- 
ment, containing in two columns, side by side, the origi- 
nal Greek and a new Latin translation of his own. He 
was thus able to place before the people a picture of the 
daily life of Christ and His Apostles in all the freshness 
of the original language. This book was much studied 
at the universities, and presently it was translated into 
the language of the common people, and thus they 
came to have a Bible which they could read as well as 
the clergy. " I wish," Erasmus said, in his preface to 
his New Testament, " that even the weakest woman 
should read the Gospels — should read the Epistles of 
Paul ; and I wish they were translated into all lan- 
guages, so that they might be read and understood not 
only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by Turks and Sara- 
cens. I long that the husbandman should sing portions 
of them to himself as he follows the plow ; that the 
weaver should hum them to the tune of his shuttle ; that 
the traveler should beguile with their stories the tedium 
of his journey." 

Thus you see, by travel, books, printing, cheap paper, 
and universities where thousands of young, ambitious 
scholars gathered for discussion and study, Europe 
was being sown with germs of new thought. Old 
things in philosophy, literature, government and religion 



354 SCHOOL HISTORY 

were no longer believed by the most thoughtful simply 
because they were old ; many were examining the old 
theories of religion, government and education, and wish- 
ing to push forward to newer truths and broader views. 

But just as the Bible speaks of the sower who sowed 
seed on different kinds of soil, some producing abun- 
dant harvest and others none at all, so the seeds of new 
thought scattered over Europe in the first part of the 
sixteenth century, and especially new thought on reli- 
gion, sprang up in some countries rapidly and in others, 
it was choked out. 

Let us now see how it grew in different places. 

There was one country where the soil was in many 
ways just ready to receive the seed of independent 
thought. This was Germany. Perhaps if you could 
have seen the people in that country, you would have 
wondered how this could be. The Germans who lived 
in the cities were well off and had many comforts and 
privileges. The peasants on the farms, however, were 
generally downtrodden and half-fed, to say nothing of 
comforts and rights. The central government was 
very weak, Germany being still cut up by the feudal 
possessions of numerous lords. Thus the peasants 
had no one to appeal to when they were oppressed. 
They were obliged to work for the lords without 
pay except the miserable living which they obtained 
from the land. At the end of the year the feudal lord 
took the best of the crops and cattle ; the Church a 
tithe of all they produced, that is, a tenth of the grain, 
every tenth calf, pig, chicken, egg, etc. Being naturally 
a vigorous, healthy race of people, living in a bracing 
climate, and, as we saw in the Fifth-Grade work, natu- 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 355 

rally disposed to free life, the Germans grew tired of 
being oppressed, and were ready for the new ideas that 
were now being spread abroad. It is but natural, then, 
that the greatest reformer of all this time should come 
from the people who were great lovers of freedom, and 
who, though they had been crushed by a thousand years, 
of Feudalism, still had in mind ideas of personal liberty 
which if they could have a leader would burst forth with 
great power. 

This great leader of the time in religious matters was 
Martin Luther. His great-grandfather and grandfather 
were Saxon peasants. His father was a miner. Thus 
he sprang from the common people and his early life 
was spent amid very lowly conditions. 

He was nine years old when Columbus set sail across 
the Atlantic, being fifteen years younger than Erasmus. 
His early home training was very severe, and his school 
life while a boy was stern and hard. Although not a 
bad boy, he was often whipped at school. 

His first home was at Eisleben, a mining town in 
Saxony, but his parents afterward moved to Magdeburg, 
a town about seventy-five miles southwest of Berlin, and 
Luther attended school there. After staying a year at 
Magdeburg, he went to Eisenach, another neighboring 
town, to study. Here he studied reading, writing, arith- 
metic and music. His parents being poor, it became 
necessary for Luther to make his own way at school. He 
partly did this by singing on the streets. His beautiful 
tenor voice and polite manners made warm friends for 
him ; and making his own way only taught him that 
self-reliance which served him so well in his great 
battles in after life. 



356 SCHOOL HISTORY 

He did so well in his studies that his father deter- 
mined to make him a lawyer, and by great economy sent 
him to Erfurt University, one of the old universities in 
central Germany. Here he studied philosophy, Greek 
and Latin, and became one of the best students there. 

Some time before graduating, a trifling thing hap- 
pened which changed the whole course of his life. 
One day he found a Latin Bible while looking through 
some of the university books. It was the first Bible he 
had ever seen, and with the greatest delight he read the 
pages again and again. He was surprised to find how 
much there was in it; for in the religious services 
which he had gone through with from childhood in the 
monastery he had heard only the meager quotations of 
the monks. To get the whole Bible and read the chap- 
ters and books through in connection, was to him like 
reading a wholly new book. He began to think about 
what he read, and a new world of religious life slowly 
dawned upon him. 

Luther, as I have already said, was reared among 
peasant people, who were superstitious ; and he therefore 
naturally inherited some superstitious ideas himself, some 
of which clung to him to the end of life. When he was 
twenty-three years old, in fulfillment, some say, of a vow 
made during a dreadful thunderstorm, when he thought 
his life was near an end, he gave up his law studies and 
entered a monastery at Erfurt. Here he obeyed most 
faithfully the rules of the monastery, fasting and pray- 
ing much, and sometimes shutting himself up in his cell 
for days ; once he was found senseless on the floor of 
his cell, so greatly had he been stirred up by his reli- 
gious thoughts and practices. But all of these things 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 357 

did not bring him'peace of mind. When he was twenty- 
five years old he was called as a preacher and teacher of 
the Bible to Wittenberg, a new university in northern 
Germany. He was still greatly troubled by religious 
thoughts, and very rigidly practiced fasts, penances and 
ceremonies of the Church, but without getting quiet of 
mind. Finally, while explaining the Epistle of St. Paul 
to the students of the university, new light came to him 
in a passage which gave him great peace. It was this : 
"The just shall live by faith." It meant to him that 
forgiveness of sins was not to be obtained by cere- 
monies, penances and fasts, but would be given freely 
by Christ to all who had faith in Him, and lived daily 
as Christ lived. He thought if one were truly sorry for 
sin, he would be pardoned then and there by God ; and 
that, therefore, outward fasts, penances and confessions 
were, not so important as some officers of the Church 
were claiming. Full of this new thought, and with his 
heart full of new hope for the Church, Luther set out 
for Rome in 15 10, when he was twenty-seven years old, 
on an errand for his monastery. While there he found, 
just as Erasmus had, many religious practices which 
gave his high ideals a great shock. The rites and cere- 
monies which were being performed in the churches 
by worldly men, and the pleasure, idleness and ease of 
many in the Church, made Luther's hot nature burn 
with anger ; and he left Rome to return home, feeling 
that he must and would go to the Church and peasants 
in the Fatherland and preach to them a higher and 
finer life. 

Now it would be very far from the truth if you should 
think that all officers and members of the Church were, 



358 SCHOOL HISTORY 

at this time, lovers of wealth and pleasure, and cared 
nothing for the simple religion of love for one another 
and love to God, which was taught by Christ and His 
Apostles. There had been in every age of the Church 
before this time many noble popes, thousands of capa- 
ble bishops, and legions of saintly monks and nuns. 
Thus from about 400 to 1100 a.d. the rude Teutonic 
children were taught the lessons of kindness, gentleness 
and brotherhood by monk and nun ; great popes, such 
for example as Gregory VII (1 01 5-1085), loved right 
and hated wrong so intensely, and gave their great 
powers so completely to reforming the abuses of their 
times, and to keeping high-minded men as leaders and 
preachers in the Church, that not only their own time, 
but all aftertime, has felt the benefit of their noble in- 
fluence. St. Francis of Assisi (1 182-1226) was so gentle 
in life and word, and so pure in soul, that when the 
Church became careless in his day, millions forsook their 
wayward leaders and leaped to follow in the footsteps of 
this beautiful-souled Saint. But by the time of the six- 
teenth century the membership of the Church had grown 
to be less pure than at some other times ; and even such 
great scholars as More, Colet and Erasmus criticised 
both kings and popes, when they saw how the common 
people were oppressed and deceived. 

After Luther returned home he continued for several 
years in his duties in the university, teaching, and work- 
ing for the reform of the Church by preaching in the 
towns around Wittenberg, but never dreaming of leav- 
ing it. Finally, in 15 17, Tetzel, a Dominican monk and 
seller of indulgences, appeared in the neighborhood of 
Wittenberg. The Pope, Leo X, was very desirous of 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 359 

obtaining money to complete St. Peter's, a very large 
and beautiful church in Rome ; and in order to get this 
money " he offered to grant indulgences, or pardons, at 
a certain price to those who would contribute money to 
the building of St. Peter's." Thus there came to be at 
this time agents who were traveling from place to place 
selling pardon-certificates, or "indulgences." 

Many of the most intelligent people in the Church 
opposed what Tetzel was doing, but others, especially 
the more ignorant, and those greatly desiring money, 
said pardon for sins might be obtained in this way. 
When Tetzel appeared near Wittenberg, Luther was 
greatly stirred. 

As we have seen, Luther was one of the common 
people; and as he loved and sympathized with them, he 
did not like to see them imposed upon. Besides, he 
knew that the sale of indulgences, as then carried on, 
instead of making true Christians, encouraged false and 
formal worship. For this reason he determined to put a 
stop "to selling pardons for sin," as he called it. If 
Luther had lived in our time, he might have written an 
article on the evils of selling pardons and had it printed 
in the newspapers. But there were no newspapers at 
that time ; so he wrote ninety-five statements against 
the sale of indulgences, and on the day before the 
festival of All Saints, when the relics of the Church 
were shown and all the country people flocked into 
town, he nailed them to the door of " All Saints Chapel " 
in Wittenberg, where everybody could read them. Not- 
withstanding the lack of newspapers, all Europe, and 
especially the people of northern Germany, soon heard 
of this and became much excited over it ; for, to speak 



360 SCHOOL HISTORY 

so boldly about what was being done by the head of 
the Church was not common. Soon Luther was chal- 
lenged to a discussion with Eck, an old fellow-student, 
and one who supported Tetzel and others in selling the 
"pardon certificates." This was held at Leipsic, about 
twenty -five miles south of Wittenberg. 

The discussion was held in the open air, on a plat- 
form, in order to accommodate the crowd. Luther was 
very fearless in his discussion. He said that he thought 
God was the author of good, and not the Church ; that 
the Pope had no power to forgive sins, that God only 
could do so ; and that the sale of indulgences was 
corrupting the Church and the people and should be 
stopped. 

If these had been simply Luther's views and nobody 
had paid any attention to them, the Pope would have 
cared very little for them ; but as discussions went on, 
and pamphlets were published by the printing press 
and eagerly read, many people came to think as Luther 
did. Soon Leo X became alarmed at the spread of the 
new thought, and in 1520 sent a written statement to 
Frederick of Saxony (the ruler of the country in which 
Luther lived), saying that Luther was preaching false 
religious doctrines, that he was therefore a heretic. The 
Pope then wrote a statement ordering Frederick to give 
Luther up, so that he might be taken to Rome and 
tried for heresy. This was called a Papal Bull. 

What will Frederick do with Luther, and what will 
Luther do with the Bull ? 

Frederick had the interests of his people much at 
heart ; and as he believed that Luther was largely right 
on the main points, he would not give him up. 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 361 

As to the Bull, when it arrived in Wittenberg, in 
December, 1520, Luther was teaching in the university 
there. He formed a solemn procession of his fellow- 
professors and the students of the university, marched 
through the principal street of the city, through the 
gate leading out of the walls to a market place, and 
there amid cheers burned the Bull and some Roman 
law-books. He burnt the Bull to declare his individual 
right to whatever religion he thought best. He burnt 
the Roman law-books to declare that Germany was from 
that time to be ruled by the law of the land and not by 
the law of Rome. Luther said that if there had been a 
mountain at Wittenberg he would have lit his bonfire 
at the top, and let the whole world see the Pope's Bull 
ablaze in its flames. 

Luther, in his earnestness and hot temper, said harsh 
things, and especially attacked persons in the Church in 
language which was not always respectful and just, and 
which his best friends regretted ; but such defiance and 
boldness as he showed could not help but attract the 
thought of all Europe to what he said and did, and 
especially did his name and fame increase rapidly in 
Germany. 

While this was going on, those who opposed Luther 
were busy thinking what should be the next step taken to 
crush his ideas. Germany at this time was loosely ruled 
over by an Emperor, and a body of men somewhat similar 
to our United States Congress, called a Diet. This Diet, 
about two hundred in number, was composed of repre- 
sentatives of the nobles, the highest German officials of 
the Church, and of representatives of the greatest German 
cities. The Diet met annually at different cities to hold 



362 SCHOOL HISTORY 

their meetings and the emperor presided. Charles V, 
a very powerful ruler, was at this time emperor, and he 
decided to call Luther before the Diet of Worms (so-called 
because it met at Worms, in southern Germany) and have 
him admit that what he had said was heresy and wrong. 

This meeting was called in 1521, and the emperor 
of Germany sent orders to Luther to appear before it 
and answer for his writings. The journey from Luther's 
home at Wittenberg to Worms was about two hundred 
and fifty miles. In the dress of a monk, and amid the 
tears of his friends, many of whom did not expect him 
to return alive, he with three companions and a herald, 
who rode ahead with a trumpet, started in a covered 
farm-wagon on a fourteen days' journey to Worms. 
Throughout the trip throngs of people followed him, 
and although he was ill during a part of the time, 
he is said to have preached with such eloquence as 
moved many of his hearers to tears. Those who flocked 
to the towns to hear him were the peasant people of 
Germany, who in their downtrodden condition felt the 
warm heart of their great leader as the " plain people " 
in our own country forty years ago felt the leadership 
and sympathy of our great common man — Lincoln. 

On arriving in Worms, Luther was summoned before 
the Diet. There were about two hundred members of 
the Diet present, and in addition, five thousand spec- 
tators who had gathered in and around the hall. The 
emperor himself presided. Luther's books were piled 
up on a table before him, and he was asked to admit 
that they were heretical, and to retract what was said 
in them. Luther's enemies expected him to reply in a 
rage, but his conduct was modest. He frankly admitted 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 363 

that he wrote the books, and asked the Diet to give 
him until the next day to say whether he would retract 
what was in them. That night he wrote to a friend, 
"With Christ's help I will never retract one tittle." 
At four o'clock the next day the officers came to bring 
him before the Diet again. The streets were full of 
people, and spectators climbed to the tops of the houses 
to see him as he was led through passages and private 
ways to escape the crowd. As he walked up the 
crowded hall some said an encouraging word or shook 
his hand, and a sympathizing prince said to him, " Little 
monk, you have a great work before you ! " Then he 
took his place at the table, where his books were piled. 
Around him were princes, nobles and kings. The great 
representatives of the Church were there. The em- 
peror of Germany, Charles V, the most powerful ruler 
then in Europe, was there to preside. It was as if all 
royal and ecclesiastical Europe were there, looking 
scornfully upon this peasant preacher who dared to 
say that religion should be chiefly a matter between 
the individual and God rather than outward forms and 
symbols of worship, and that one's conscience should 
be free in choosing whatever religion he thought 
best. 

Then Luther stood up and heard the one question 
which Europe had gathered there to ask, " Martin 
Luther, do you retract those books or not ? " Then 
came the answer : " Before I can retract I must be con- 
vinced either by the testimony of the Scriptures or clear 
arguments that I am wrong. ... I am bound by the 
Scriptures which I have quoted ; my conscience is sub- 
missive to ? the word of God ; therefore I may not, and 



364 SCHOOL HISTORY 

will not recant, because to act against conscience is unholy 
and tins afe. So help me God! Amen." 

Several other efforts were made in the next day or so 
to have him retract, but all in vain. He stood bravely 
and fought the battle for that free thought which so 
many of his nation were hungering for. And he fought 
it not only for his own people, but for all Christendom, 
of whatever creed, for the discussion which he brought 
about on such great questions as the nature of sin, re- 
pentance, forgiveness, faith, prayer, and what is required 
to live truly as Christ lived while on earth, has influenced 
the thought of the last four hundred years perhaps 
more than any other one thing occurring in that time. 

The emperor now ordered him to leave Worms and 
return home. The hero now of the German people, he 
set out again for home, but his friends, fearing that he 
might be seized by his enemies and put to death, se- 
cretly carried him off to the castle of the Wartburg in 
Thuringia, where he remained in the disguise of a gen- 
tleman for a time, letting his beard grow, wearing a 
.sword at his side, dressing like a knight, and being 
known to all except intimate friends as Junker George. 
But all this time he was watching the growth of thought 
among his countrymen and preparing the greatest gift 
he ever gave to the German people. This was the Bible, 
which he translated with great care from the Latin into 
such pure German that the Germans still to-day, three 
centuries and a half after Luther, speak and write it 
just as Luther wrote it in his Bible and hymns. 

After this, and by means of the printing press, all the 
people of his country could have a Bible in their own 
language. Luther's translation was intended to be 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 365 

simple and to reproduce the tone and spirit of the orig- 
inal texts. He said he wished " the Bible to be under- 
stood by the mother in the house, by the children in the 
streets and by the common man in the market." It was 
completed in 1522, and became at once the household 
book throughout northern Germany. 

Now came another effort to destroy the influence of 
Luther ; after Luther would not retract at Worms what 
he had written, the Pope asked Charles V (who, you re- 
member, was king of Spain and emperor of Germany) 
to order all Luther's books burnt. So Charles sent 
a letter, or Edict, as it was called, to all parts of his 
empire, ordering this done. In some places they were, 
but the people burnt Charles's Edict in more places 
than they did Luther's books. And so the Reformation 
of the Church rapidly grew in Germany. 

We will not follow Luther year by year through the 
remainder of his life. He continued writing books as 
long as he lived, writing in all more than a hundred. He 
labored most diligently to increase learning and spread 
it out among the people. He constantly and eloquently 
advocated free thought and free speech, but he did not 
always practice his principles toward others as fully as 
he advocated them. He was sometimes ruled by super- 
stition, and thought that persons could, at times, see 
devils and be possessed by them. Toward those who 
differed from him in opinion he often used harsh, 
violent, coarse and even shocking language. But with 
all his many faults, it can truthfully be said that as 
he gained greater knowledge he became more just 
and gentle toward his fellow-men. As his horizon of 
thought widened he more frankly and frequently con- 



366 SCHOOL HISTORY 

fessed his errors ; and when he was taunted with being 
inconsistent (and in fact he frequently was so) he said : 
" I thought so once ; I was wrong. I think so no more. 
I appeal from Luther in ignorance to Luther well in- 
formed," — and this is not a bad habit to follow for one 
who is earnestly seeking the truth. 

Luther believed that monks should marry; that by hav- 
ing homes and families of their own they would be better 
men. He therefore married and reared a family, being 
kind, amiable and cheerful in his own family circle, and, 
amid the most heated discussions and conflicts, which 
often called him from home, wrote the most tender let- 
ters to "Kate," as he called his wife, and to "little 
Johnny," as he affectionately called their son. 

He died in 1546, in his sixty-third year. By advo- 
cating and practicing to a degree the principle that one 
should have the right of free worship, and by starting 
all Christendom to practicing this principle, so that it 
now follows it much more wisely than it did then, 
Luther became the greatest man of his nation, the 
greatest of his time, and one of the greatest men of any 
nation and of any time. 

During the quarter of a century between the Diet of 
Worms and Luther's death there was very earnest dis- 
cussion of religion in Germany. As I have already told 
you, Germany was divided into many little feudal states, 
at the head of each being a prince. Some of these 
princes sided with Luther and others with the Pope, so 
Germany finally came to be divided into two great op- 
posing camps on the subject of religion. Those who 
sided with Luther went on rapidly in the work of re- 
form. Monasteries were reformed or torn down and 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 367 

the money used for education, for supporting the 
preaching of the Gospel, or for the poor. Monks 
and nuns were allowed to marry ; religious services 
were generally carried on in German rather than Latin. 
The children were taught in the common schools, and 
Luther's German Bible and German hymns came into 
general use. It thus came about that centers of new 
thought in education, in government and religion sprang 
up in almost the whole of northern Germany — that 
part which was most Teutonic and had been least influ- 
enced by Rome — and laid the foundation for the 
sturdy, independent people who have made Germany 
in our day one of the greatest nations in the world. 

During the sixteenth century other European coun- 
tries were also stirred with these same questions of 
reform. In Spain reformers arose who translated the 
Bible into Spanish for the common people, and strove 
for free religious thought. 

But so much were the Spanish king and the leading 
authorities in the Church opposed to all this, that they 
appointed a body of men to inquire carefully into every 
person's religious opinions ; and if they were not such 
as the Church wished them to have and they would not 
retract, they were either tortured or burnt. Inquiring 
into the religious opinions of people, and punishing those 
who did not believe and practice what the Church wished, 
was what is called the Inquisition. The story of the treat- 
ment of reformers in Spain is more cruel than that in 
any other country. And so perfectly did the Inquisition 
do its work in that country that it plucked up all roots of 
the new thought which were springing up there. And 
just as Germany has grown wealthier and stronger by 



368 SCHOOL HISTORY 

continually taking up new thought during the past four 
hundred years, Spain has grown weaker and poorer by 
crushing all new thought out of her country. 

In France, at this time, as in Spain, there was one 
powerful ruler at the head of the government, who ruled 
his people practically without consulting them at all. 
This ruler, in the time of Luther, was much opposed to 
the thought of the reformers, or Protestants, as they 
were now generally called. But notwithstanding this, a 
reformer who has had almost as great an influence on 
the world as Luther was born in France at this time 
and educated in her great universities of Paris and 
Orleans. This was John Calvin. He was twenty-five 
years younger than Luther. He was born in 1 509. By 
the time he became of age, he was considered a heretic 
by the Church, and as heretics were burnt in France at 
that time he, left home to travel in Germany and Italy. 
While he was still a young man he settled in Geneva, 
Switzerland, and became a powerful advocate of the new 
doctrines there. He thought that every congregation 
should have the right to choose its own preacher, just 
as the Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, for 
example, do nowadays. He thought that the preacher 
and congregation had the right to make people go to 
church, go to school, give up swearing, dancing, playing 
at dice, etc. He ruled after this manner in Geneva the 
greater part of his life, strongly advocating religious 
freedom, and, like Luther, writing many books upon it ; 
but also, like Luther, sometimes failing to practice it 
(for he had one man, Servetus, burned with his books 
hung to his girdle, for an honest difference of opinion 
from him on religious matters). 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 369 

But notwithstanding his faults, he was a man of 
great ability, and his better ideas were caught up in 
France by reformers who called themselves Huguenots, 
and at first they grew very rapidly. During the six- 
teenth and the first of the seventeenth centuries the 
Huguenots came to be, so far as industry, education 
and moral character were concerned, the foremost 
people of the French nation. But as I have already 
told you, the French rulers were opposed to the Hugue- 
nots. One ruler in 1572 had twenty thousand — some 
say one hundred thousand — massacred in one fatal 
night. Finally, in 1685, after much bloody struggle 
between Huguenots and Catholics, Louis XIV had all 
the Huguenots banished from France. France thus 
cut off her right arm, so to speak, for in banishing the 
Huguenots she banished industry, free thought, and 
manly independence. Some of the Huguenots went to 
England ; others came to the American colonies, and 
were the forefathers of men like John Jay, Henry 
Laurens who did so much for liberty in the early his- 
tory of our nation, and Peter Faneuil who built "the 
cradle of American liberty," as Faneuil Hall, in Boston, 
has been called. Thus, you see, when the Huguenots 
were not allowed to enjoy freedom in the Old World, 
they came to the New and struggled all the more bravely 
to establish liberty in America. 

Holland and Denmark, as you will see by the map, 
lie just north of Germany, and Sweden is not so very 
far away. In all these countries the lamp of the new 
truth was lit by the reformers in the sixteenth century, 
and all rapidly developed independent Protestant 
churches of their own. Especially did little Holland 



370 SCHOOL HISTORY 

become a home to which the oppressed of all nations 
could flee and enjoy the fullest degree of religious lib- 
erty. You remember the Pilgrim Fathers, who braved 
the seas to plant the spirit of the Reformation in New 
England, went from England to Holland when they were 
no longer allowed to worship freely in their native land. 

Let us now notice very briefly how the new ideas 
of religious reform grew in England. 

England was in one way like, -and in another way 
very different at this time from Germany. She was 
like, in being occupied by freedom-loving Teutons, who 
were always jealously guarding their liberties ; she was 
unlike in having a single king instead of petty princes 
who ruled over the entire country. Now the King of 
England could not rule just as he pleased, but had to 
ask the people through their representatives in Parlia- 
ment what they wanted done. The king ruling in 
England while Luther was preaching and working so 
earnestly in Germany was Henry VIII (i 509-1 547). 

Henry VIII at first did all he could to help the Pope 
destroy Luther's ideas, but something occurred to make 
him change his mind. He had married his brother's 
widow, Catherine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella of Spain. Catherine was older than he and in 
poor health, and, besides, he had fallen in love with a 
young and handsome woman named Anne Boleyn. 
Henry asked the Pope to grant him a divorce from 
Catherine, saying that he thought it wrong for one to 
marry his brother's widow, as the Bible forbids this in 
the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. But the Pope very 
properly refused to grant the divorce. At that time 
one could not get a divorce from courts as is done 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 371 

sometimes now. The only possible way was to get it 
from the Church. What was Henry VIII to do? 

He conceived the plan of leaving the Catholic Church 
entirely, of setting up a new Church in England where 
the spirit of religious freedom had already grown con- 
siderably, and of getting Parliament to declare him the 
head of it. If this were done, he knew he could secure 
the divorce through Parliament without consulting the 
Pope. This was accomplished in a few years, and 
Parliament declared Henry VIII " Supreme Head of 
the Church of England." This is generally said to be 
the beginning of the Episcopal Church, or Church of 
England, and from this sprang the Church in America 
known as the Protestant Episcopal Church. 

Henry's reason for leaving the Catholic Church was 
selfish and ignoble, but from his leaving it, sprang up 
thereafter true reformers, and great principles of reli- 
gious freedom developed, because of what he did, in 
both England and America. We will mention some of 
the great steps by which this came about. 

One of the first steps toward reform taken by Henry 
after he was declared head of the Church was to shut 
up a part of the monasteries in England, of which there 
were at that time over six hundred. 

The monks and nuns had lived very simple, sacrific- 
ing and useful lives in early times, when they were 
showing by example the heathen of western Europe 
the kindness and love of Jesus and His Apostles ; 
but in a thousand years of growth the monasteries 
had become wealthy, and many monks and nuns were 
living idle, useless lives ; and instead of practicing true 
religion, they often did little more than keep up its forms 



372 SCHOOL HISTORY 

and ceremonies. By being idle and ignorant some also 
became immoral. So Henry, partly through greed 
(because he wanted the property of the religious houses 
to use in war and for his own pleasure), shut up a 
part of them, turned the monks and nuns out into the 
world, pensioning some, and using some of the money 
obtained from the monasteries in establishing schools 
and colleges. The schools and colleges would become 
freer as they became less controlled by the Church, and 
people of all religions would have a better chance for 
education than they had had before. 

A second very important step taken by Henry was 
to order an English translation of the Bible made and 
put in all the churches, that people might read it. 
This translation was begun by Tyndale in 1525 and 
was continued by English scholars till it was com- 
pleted nearly a hundred years later (in 161 1). A 
copy of the new translation was kept chained to the 
reading-desk in every church, and the common people 
who were too poor to own one themselves joined to- 
gether and purchased a neighborhood Bible. Henry 
thought that by teaching every one to read the Bible and 
use the prayer-book, people would learn to pray for the 
king and others in authority instead of the Pope. They 
did learn to do so, but they also learned to think freely 
on religious subjects, and this habit finally led them 
to set up religions without asking leave of either king 
or Pope. 

A third very great step which helped on the Refor- 
mation in England was the effort made by Elizabeth, 
Henry VIII's daughter (who ruled during the last half 
of the sixteenth century, 1 558-1603), to have everybody 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 373 

in England worship alike. She got Parliament to say 
that Catholic and Protestant should meet together and 
use the same prayer-book, recite the same creed, and 
use nothing but the English language in the Church 
service. There were now getting to be many in the 
Church who, more in earnest and much more sincerely 
than Henry, objected to some of the Church doctrines 
and ceremonies. For example, many did not like to 
see the surplice worn in the pulpit, as it reminded them 
of the preachers before the Reformation and practices 
and beliefs of earlier centuries. They did not like to 
see pictures of saints in the church, for much the same 
reason. These people wanted to purify the English 
Church by having the preacher leave off the surplice 
and many other forms and ceremonies then practiced, 
and hence they came to be called Puritans. 

When the law was passed compelling them all to 
attend church whether they wished to or not, many 
Protestants went to Germany, Holland and Switzerland, 
where they became all the more filled with ideas of re- 
form, and especially with John Calvin's ideas, which 
taught that people have a right to set up little congre- 
gations, and worship God just as they see fit, without ask- 
ing permission of any one. They became so filled with 
this idea that when England would not let them prac- 
tice it at home, they willingly left their friends, kindred 
and country, to come across the sea and plant the new 
idea in the New World. 

Thus when the Pilgrim Fathers and the people of 
Boston settled on the New England shore, they brought 
with them the very ripest and choicest seed of the 
Reformation to plant in the new soil. 



374 SCHOOL HISTORY 

This germ of liberty has grown in our land till it has 
given the greatest freedom to everybody — Catholic, 
Protestant, Jew and pagan — to worship as his con- 
science tells him is right, so long as his worship does 
not interfere with the rights of others. And so precious 
is this to us, and cost so much struggle to obtain, that 
when our fathers came to write our national Constitu- 
tion they said expressly and definitely that Congress 
shall make no law favoring one religion more than an- 
other, or any law to prevent one from having whatever 
religion he wishes. 

To sum up, we have now seen in studying the 
Reformation that it was : — 

First, an effort made to place the Bible in simple and 
plain language before the people that they might thus 
be able to decide religious questions freely for them- 
selves, and take whatever steps seemed to them best 
in following the teachings and life of Jesus and His 
Disciples. 

Second, that this led reformers to translate and print 
thousands of books and tracts so that common people 
could read them. And these gave the people excellent 
models of speech in their own tongues — English, 
French, Dutch, and German, — which led to the writing 
of many new books and to the development of a great 
literature in each of these countries. 

Third, it led the great religious teachers to establish 
schools for teaching their religious ideas, — schools 
were established by Calvin in Geneva ; by Savonarola in 
Florence ; by Edward VI in England ; by John Knox 
in Scotland ; by Ignatius Loyola over almost the whole 
world, and by the Puritans who settled in Massachu- 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 375 

setts. These schools rapidly grew in numbers and in 
free thought, and soon came to teach the new ideas 
of science which were now springing up in the minds 
of great men like Copernicus and Galileo, as well as 
the new and freer ideas of religion and government. 

Fourth, it led to the destruction of many of the mon- 
asteries which had lost their higher life, and made people 
believe that married life is as sacred and exalted for 
religious leaders as the unmarried ; and that for modern 
times the public school, open to every shade of thought, 
offers a better opportunity for training the mind to 
broad and liberal views than schools overshadowed by 
the Church. 

Fifth, we have seen that the Romance countries — 
Spain and France — crushed out the plants of free 
religious thought, and have been ever since weaker 
therefrom ; while the Teutonic countries — England, 
Germany, Holland, Norway and Sweden, cultivated the 
.seeds till they took firm root in the Old World and 
spread to the New. 

Sixth, we have seen that the growth of free ideas 
was so strong in England that, when it was checked 
there for a time in the first quarter of the seventeenth 
century, those who would not suffer the lamp of liberty 
to be quenched left home and friends, crossed stormy 
seas, and planted the hard-won principles in free schools, 
free religions, free labor (in the North) and free govern- 
ment up and down the Atlantic seacoast from Maine to 
Georgia during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies. And it is this idea of individual liberty and self- 
reliance which has cleared the forest and built the 
Republic from the Atlantic to the Pacific during the 



376 SCHOOL HISTORY 

nineteenth century, and now rules and molds the life of 
the New World. 

But the chief result to us in studying the Reformation 
should be to lead us away from narrow and intolerant 
religious views. We should not think that the Catholic 
was all wrong in his opinions and the Protestant all 
right, nor the Protestant all wrong and the Catholic all 
right. It would be a better view to see that no human 
mind and no Church can at any time possess the whole 
of truth ; for truth, as grasped by man, is continually 
growing. All churches in order to grow, therefore, 
must be continually gaining higher and truer views. 
But truth grows most rapidly by every one having a 
chance to tell freely the way he sees it ; it was, there- 
fore, a great gain that the Reformation of the sixteenth 
century brought about a freer discussion of religious 
matters than had ever existed before, and this freer 
discussion in turn has brought about, in the four hundred 
years since the Reformation, vastly better means of 
discussion and education, such as the printing press, 
books, magazines, newspapers and pictures. Thus we 
may see that, although at first every religion, because of 
the intense earnestness, and ability of its followers to 
see but one side of the question, was intolerant of every 
other, the distant fruit of the Reformation has been 
that it has broadened the views of all branches of the 
Christian Church, made all more earnest seekers after 
the Truth, made every one more willing to consider 
and tolerate views — religious, political or social — 
which may differ from his own, and helped all mankind, 
of whatever sect or creed, to see that every age and 
every branch of the Universal Church has had, and in 



GROWTH OF FREE RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION 377 

order to grow must continue to have, its mighty teachers 
and reformers standing like guide-posts, pointing man- 
kind to a higher, freer and finer life. 

References 

Seebohm: Protestant Revolution; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Balmes : European Civilization ; Murphy & Co., Baltimore, Md. 
Myers : Mediseval and Modern History ; Ginn & Co., Boston. 
Kostlin : Life of Luther ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Thatcher and Schwill : Europe in the Middle Ages ; Scribner's 

Sons, N.Y. 
Larned: History of England ; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., N.Y. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 
See articles in good cyclopedias on Renascence, Reformation, 

Inquisition : and on the biographies suggested for study. 
Study the biographies of Gregory VII, Saint Francis of Assisi, 

Leo X, Luther, William Tindal, Elizabeth, Copernicus, Galileo, 

Loyola, Calvin, John Knox, Oliver Cromwell, John Robinson. 



SEVENTH-GRADE WORK 

The aim of the seventh-grade history work is to show two streams 
of thought struggling for America — the first Romanic, represented 
by Spanish and French colonial life ; the second Teutonic, repre- 
sented by English colonial life. The final aim is to see the growth 
of the Teutonic stream till it prevails over the Romanic, and, in the 
last quarter of the eighteenth century, expresses itself in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, the American Revolution, and, greatest of all, 
the United States Constitution. 



378 



THE IDEAS WHICH SPAIN DEVELOPED 
AT HOME AND THEN PLANTED IN 
AMERICA 

When Columbus discovered America, in 1492, there 
were three strong nations on the western coast of 
Europe — Spain, France and England. As soon as 
America was discovered, these three nations reached 
out their hands across the vast spaces of the Western 
ocean to lay hold of the New World. Throughout all 
of the sixteenth and seventeenth and the greater part 
of the eighteenth centuries these powers struggled for 
mastery of the Atlantic Ocean and the New World 
beyond. Before three centuries were gone it was clear 
that the English people and Teutonic ideas were to rule 
the western land. The reason why Spain and France 
failed in the struggle, and England so completely suc- 
ceeded, was because the first two nations sought to plant 
mediaeval ideas in America, while the English colonists, 
led by ideals of the future and not of the past, came 
to the new shore full of the new ideas which had burst 
forth in Europe in the Renascence, the English Par- 
liament, the printing press, the public school and the 
Reformation. To study this struggle for the New 
World and see how it terminated is the work of the 
seventh grade. 

We will first look at Spain and the life developed 
there, for the ideas Spain had at home were the ideas 
she brought to the New World. 

379 



380 • SCHOOL HISTORY 

Spain is a peninsula in the southwestern part of 
Europe, which, although lying directly east from the 
central part of the United States, has a much milder 
climate. In it grow such products as grapes, oranges, 
figs, dates, almonds and olives. Outside of a narrow 
coast-plain surrounding the greater part of the penin- 
sula, its surface is a high plateau, broken by mountains. 
It was hard to subdue the mountaineers living in these 
fastnesses, and brave people have lived there for thou- 
sands of years. 

Spain was conquered about two thousand years ago 
(133 B.C.) by the Romans, who settled it and ruled it 
very firmly for many years, working the rich mines of 
gold and silver which they found there and carrying 
the riches back to Rome. When Rome began to lose 
her power, the Germans overran the peninsula, and 
settled it about 415 years after Christ. They learned 
much from the Roman people they found there, and 
adopted many of Rome's ways, especially her way of 
having one man rule arbitrarily, — that is, without con- 
sulting the people's wishes, or having them vote upon 
questions, as we do in America. 

About three hundred years after the Germans con- 
quered Spain, that is, about the beginning of the eighth 
century, the Arab Moors, who were Mohammedans in 
religion, conquered all of Spain except the mountains in 
the extreme north. The Moors grew to be very indus- 
trious and well educated, and for a time had the best 
universities in the world. Many people from other 
European countries came to attend their schools. But 
the brave Christian people in the little mountain states 
of northern Spain kept fighting back the Mohammedan 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 38 1 

Moors, driving them slowly farther and farther south, 
till all of the northern half of Spain was regained by 
the Christians. Here several brave little Christian 
states grew up, from about 900 to 1500 a.d. These 
states not only fought continually against the Moors, but 
quarreled much among themselves, just as all the feudal 
states did during the Middle Ages. Two of the largest 
states were Aragon and Castile. In 1469 Ferdinand, 
Prince of Aragon, married Isabella, Princess of Castile, 
thus joining these two states under one power. Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella soon ruled all Spain except a little 
mountainous fringe in the extreme south, called Grenada, 
held by the Moors. 

Now, fighting constantly for almost eight hundred 
years made the Spanish very brave, but very cruel as 
well. Fighting for their religion against the Moham- 
medan Moors made religion the uppermost thought in 
their minds. Likewise it helped to make them hold to 
one church and one religion — the Catholic — more firmly 
than did any other great nation of their time. 

By the last of the fifteenth century the continual 
snarling and petty warfare between the little Spanish 
states were largely brought to an end by having the 
same king and queen rule over all. And, and as I 
told you, the king and queen themselves decided what 
they would have done in religion, government, education 
and the like, and did not ask the people who had 
helped to fight the battles much about what they 
would like to have done. This kind of rule is what is 
called despotic government, and Spain grew, like old 
Rome, to be more and more despotic the older she 
became. But now that the Spanish were united they 



382 SCHOOL HISTORY 

joined against the last of the Moors, and, after ten 
years of fighting, completely conquered them, in 
1492. 

We have seen already, in the sixth-grade work, that 
during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the people 
from all parts of Europe had gone to the Holy Land on 
crusades. This led to the circulation of great quantities 
of products between European cities and the lands of 
the East. It led no less to new ideas and broader 
views coming to the West, which filled people with a 
great desire to know more and to be adventurous. The 
art of printing, invented in the same year that Columbus 
was born (1446), spread the new knowledge, and soon 
made it possible for one to possess a library as easily 
as in the Middle Ages he could have possessed a single 
book. In fact, as we saw in our studies in the sixth 
grade, Europe in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries was bursting with new thought, as blossoms 
burst with the coming of fresh showers and sunshine in 
the springtime. 

Now Genoa, the home of Columbus, being favorably 
situated on the Mediterranean, had. carried on extensive 
trade with southern and eastern Asia for three hundred 
years before Columbus's time ; but when the Moham- 
medans captured Constantinople, in 1453 a.d., they 
stopped the ships of Genoa from traveling eastward, 
and her trade rapidly declined. 

Some of the best-educated people at that time thought 
that the earth was round, though much smaller than it is ; 
but no one had been brave enough to strike boldly 
toward the west into the unknown sea to prove whether 
it was really a sphere or not. But Columbus, full of 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 383 

the free spirit of the time, was bold enough to try it. 
With three ships furnished by Isabella of Spain, he 
struck fearlessly out over the vast spaces of the 
Western ocean to break away the narrow limits of 
the Middle Ages and carry on trade with Asia across 
the Atlantic. 

The first land he discovered was the island of San Sal- 
vador, southeast of Florida, but he thought he had found 
Asia. How excited the Spaniards and all Europe be- 
came when he went home and told what he had found ! 
Spain at once sent over ships to get the spices, silver 
and pearls of what she thought to be the East Indies, 
but of course these were not obtained. However, they 
still thought for many years that they had found Asia, 
and, in spite of disappointments, kept coming to the 
new country ; for although the war with the Moors was 
over, the people were quite as fond of adventure as ever. 
Moreover, Spain wanted to explore the country and get 
a claim to it before any other country could do so. 
Monks and missionaries were anxious also to convert 
the natives to their religion. But besides their love of 
adventure, desire to extend territory, and desire to con- 
vert the natives, the Spaniards had a still stronger 
motive for hurrying over to explore and settle the new 
country, — and this was the hope of finding gold, silver, 
and precious stones. 

They first explored and settled the fertile islands of 
the West Indies. The most remarkable stories were 
carried back to Spain of the wonderful fountains of 
youth, where one had but to bathe to become young 
again, and of cities built of gold. Many people eagerly 
came to America in search of these wonders, and with 



384 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the hope of quickly growing rich and returning to Spain. 
Ponce de Leon hunted through the swamps of Florida for 
the fountain of youth and for gold ; he found neither, 
but after many years of weary effort he was killed by 
the poisoned arrows of the Indians. 

About twenty-five years after the voyage of Colum- 
bus, 1 5 19-152 1, another Spaniard, named Cortez, came 
to Mexico. He beat his way through the jungles of the 
tropical lowlands, crossed the mountains of Mexico, and 
reached the fertile plateau between the mountain ranges 
near the present city of Mexico, where the Aztec Indians 
had their city. The Aztecs were at that time more 
nearly civilized than most of the Indians of America ; 
they had cities and an organized government, and culti- 
vated the land. After a hard and cruel struggle the 
natives were conquered by Cortez, who plundered them 
of their gold and silver, sent many of them as slaves to 
the mines, and set up a government among them, which 
had for its purpose to get everything possible out of 
the country for himself and the king of Spain. Cortez 
was truly as arbitrary and cruel a ruler in Mexico as 
ever any king was in Spain. 

Pizarro, a few years after, went to the mountainous 
country which is now called Peru, and after much cruelty 
and deceit conquered the Indians there. He gained 
even more wealth than Cortez had gained — about 
seventeen million dollars in gold, it is said. Such rapid 
accumulation of treasure as this set Spain wild. Thou- 
sands hurried to America, plunged into forests and 
swamps, crossed rivers, ascended mountains, endured 
hardships, fatigue and death, led on always by dreams 
of sudden wealth. 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 385 

De Soto came (1 539-1 540) to the southern part of 
what is now the United States, with high hopes of find- 
ing as rich cities as Pizarro had done a few years before. 
He, like most of the Spanish explorers, was cruel to the 
Indians. He forced them to act as guides or pack- 
animals through the country, and killed or tortured 
those who refused to do so. He failed to find any 
treasure, though he wandered many miles through 
the swamps of Florida, the forests of Georgia and 
Alabama and at last discovered the Mississippi River. 
This he crossed, and, circling across the grassy western 
plains, again returned to the Mississippi, where he died. 
His followers, it is said, lowered his body at midnight 
in the waters of the river he had discovered. 

Cortez, Pizarro and De Soto are but types of the 
many brave and cruel Spaniards who traversed almost 
all parts of South and Central America, Mexico, Texas, 
California, and what are now New Mexico, Arizona and 
Nevada, during the two hundred years following the 
conquests of these great explorers. Throughout the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Spanish soldier 
and adventurer and the Spanish priest came to America 
by the tens of thousands to gain territory, grow rich, 
obtain gold for the king of Spain and convert the natives 
to Christianity. Since the Spaniards had so much to 
do with the Indians, and were influenced by them so 
greatly, we must now know something of them. 

The Indians differed in different parts of the New 
World, owing partly to differences in the geographical 
conditions of the various regions. In many parts of the 
country they lived by hunting and fishing, and in the 
warmer parts by gathering the tropical products which 



386 SCHOOL HISTORY 

were obtained by little labor. Along the coast in the 
tropics the hot climate and fertile soil produced a 
luxuriant growth of vegetable life. Farther back from 
the coast the ground was higher and the climate not so 
hot and unhealthful. Corn was here grown by the Indi- 
ans, two crops being raised in a year with little labor. 
In Brazil the great Amazon River flowed eastward to 
the sea. All about it stretched jungles and forests, with 
intertwining vines which made the forest almost impene- 
trable. Here, too, were fierce animals, enormous reptiles, 
poisonous insects and plants. With a hot, weakening 
climate, many wild fruits and berries at hand, and a soil 
so rich that vegetation sprang up as soon as the ground 
was cleared, it is no wonder that the Indians of the 
Amazon Valley did not make the advancement that 
they did in Mexico and Peru. They lived in tribes, or 
clans, generally with a chief, or ruler, fighting their bat- 
tles with bows and arrows, hard wooden spears, and 
swords tipped with bone or metal. 

If you will take your maps, you will see that follow- 
ing the Pacific coast are several long mountain ranges, 
with high plateaus between, running through Mexico, 
Central America and South America. In these high 
mountains were rich mines of gold, silver, copper and 
iron. The climate on these plateaus was much cooler 
and pleasanter than that in the lowland regions. In 
many valleys the soil was fertile. The Indians living 
here had advanced much more toward civilization than 
anywhere else in North or South America ; for they did 
not have to struggle for existence and face starvation as 
those in the colder North, nor were their wants supplied 
with little effort of their own, as in the tropical regions 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 387 

of Central and South America. Those in Mexico and 
what is now Peru lived in towns, with a regular govern- 
ment, and had farms with irrigating canals on which 
they raised cotton, corn, tobacco, bananas, oranges and 
olives. All of the Indians had some way of worship- 
ing God, and a belief in the happy hunting-grounds 
beyond the grave. They sometimes offered human 
sacrifices to their gods. 

Into this land, then, — a land of flowers and sunshine 
and ease, a land of gold and silver, a land rather thickly 
populated in parts by the Indians, — came the Spaniard 
through the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. The mild climate was much the same as in 
the home he left behind, and the soil so fertile that it 
had but to be scratched to yield abundant crops. Thus 
the new settlers, like the Indians, had little trouble in 
getting enough to eat, and were not obliged to build 
warm houses and live close together so as to help one 
another, as were the English settlers along the Atlantic 
coast. Fifty years before the English or the French 
had made a single permanent settlement in the New 
World, Spain had explored so extensively and estab- 
lished military posts and missions over such vast reaches 
of territory that her claim seemed assured to most of 
South America, all of Central America and Mexico and 
a large part of what is now the United States. 

The king of Spain, who claimed to own all the land 
himself, just as did the feudal lord of the Middle Ages, 
made grants of territory to those who wished to found 
settlements in America, having them promise to convert 
the natives and to send to Spain one-fifth of all the 
precious metals found. Along with the land the king 



388 SCHOOL HISTORY 

granted the colonizer a certain number of Indians, who, 
according to the rule, were obliged to work a part of the 
time for the owner, another part for the king, and were 
then to be free to work for themselves for the rest of 
the time. But most of the owners obliged the Indians 
to work as slaves all the time, in spite of the rule. Thus 
you see, the way the land was granted, the way it was 
worked, and the treatment of those who worked it, were 
not essentially different from the way we saw them 
under Feudalism, in the fifth grade. Feudalism was 
no doubt a good government for the Middle Ages, but 
as compared to democracy, where all the people have an 
equal chance for the wealth, comforts and pleasures of 
life, it is very poor. 

As Spanish settlement increased in America the terri- 
tory claimed by Spain was divided for governmental 
purposes into four great districts, called viceroyalties. 
The king appointed officers, called viceroys, to come 
over from Spain to rule these for him. The viceroy was 
(i) to get as much gold as possible for the king, (2) to 
see that the laws were obeyed, (3) to get the colonists 
to raise what Spain needed, (4) to see that all had the 
same religion, and (5) to protect the Indians. He never 
failed to look carefully after the gold, both for himself 
and the king, but generally failed to give much thought 
to the rights of the Indians. 

Many subordinate officers were also appointed, with 
various duties. The viceroyalty was divided, and each 
subdivision was ruled by a governor, appointed also by 
the authorities in Spain. All officers were told to watch 
one another and report any wrongdoing to the king ; 
this tended to make the official class a body of spies, and 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 389 

did not lead them to work together harmoniously for 
free government, as was the case among the English 
colonists in America. As the colonies grew in popu- 
lation, more officers were appointed. In fact, there 
finally grew to be swarms of officers in the colonies, 
new offices being continually created for the Spanish 
nobles and other favorites of the king. 

Afterwhile it came to be much as it once was in the 
worst days of Rome, — the one who would pay the most 
money for the office was sure to be appointed. Of 
course the officer must then make enough money in 
America to reimburse himself, and a fortune besides. 
This led to the greatest oppression by the official class 
of both the natives and the poorer Spanish colonists. 

All laws for the colonies were made in Spain, not a 
law having been made by the colonists themselves from 
the day Spain set foot on the New World at the end 
of the fifteenth century till she withdrew from it at 
the end of the nineteenth. The higher judges of the 
courts also were sent to the colonies from Spain. If 
some great colonial question were to be decided, an ap- 
peal could be made from the colonies to a court in 
Spain, or to the king himself, for settlement ; but most 
disputes were settled by the judges in America. 

The colonists could elect no officials except some of 
the town officers, and it soon came about that they did 
not do even this. It was Spain's fixed policy, in managing 
her colonies, to give no rights to the colonists in making 
laws, and none in electing officers. Throughout her 
entire colonial history she treated her colonies as a parent 
treats a child. She never thought them old enough or 
wanted them to become old enough to take care of 



390 



SCHOOL HISTORY 



themselves ; nor was she like the English king, who left 
his colonists to look out for themselves for so long that 
when he wished Parliament to make laws for them 
without their consent they refused to permit it. Spain 
watched over her colonies from the first, and checked 
every step which tended to teach them to walk alone. 

Spain sometimes tried to enforce laws for the proper 
treatment of the Indians. But though some officers did 
their best to treat them well, it was always the case, as I 
have already told you, that those who bought their 
offices cared more to make money than to protect the 
Indians. It was, therefore, the general rule that in their 
mad struggle for gold they enslaved and brutally treated 
the Indian. 

But I must tell you also something of the laws passed 
in Spain for the treatment of the Spanish colonists who 
came to America. The Spanish king and his counselors 
cared more for themselves than they did for the colo- 
nists, and made such laws for their government as they 
thought would bring most wealth into their pockets and 
into the treasury of Spain. The colonies were not al- 
lowed to trade with other countries or with one another. 
All trade was to be with Spain, wholly by Spaniards 
and on Spanish ships. Spain thought by following this 
course not only to make more money, but also to keep 
her colonies wholly dependent on the home country, so 
that they would not develop an intercolonial trade and 
thus grow strong and independent. 

Now the result of all this was that the people in 
Spain, by getting so much gold and produce from 
America without working for it, became lazy. They 
did less farming and manufacturing at home from 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 391 

year to year, and depended on American gold to buy 
what they wanted. They forbade the Americans to 
manufacture what they used, as woolen or cotton goods, 
or wine, or olive oil, or hoes or rakes. Thus Spain hoped 
to make a profit selling manufactured articles to the colo- 
nists; but when the home country ceased to manufacture, 
as was the case very largely through the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries, because her people grew idle 
and ignorant, she had to spend all the more money in 
buying of other countries what the colonists needed, as 
well as what she herself needed for home use. Thus, 
in spite of the great influx of gold from the American 
mines, Spain was really becoming poorer and weaker in 
industry, in self-reliance, economy, and in the intelligence 
of her people ; and without these no nation can live or 
hope to grow strong. 

The colonists were forbidden to raise olives, tobacco, 
grapes, or any other products that Spain wished to raise 
at home ; but they were encouraged to grow such things 
as Spain needed and did not produce at home. Thus 
there grew to be great sugar plantations in the West 
Indies, where many Indians and negroes were worked 
in gangs as slaves. In Central America, Mexico and 
California, wheat and barley were raised around the 
monasteries, and many horses, cattle and sheep were 
herded on the hillsides and in the upland valleys. 
These generally ran wild and needed but little care. 

But what the Spaniard struggled most for, as I have 
already told you, were the precious metals ; from this 
it came about that one of the chief occupations in the 
colonies was mining. Many rich mines of gold and 
silver were found, especially in Mexico and Peru, and 



392 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the Indians were generally compelled under the lash to 
work them. The Spanish law provided, that the In- 
dians should be paid, and this was occasionally done ; 
but more generally they were brutally treated, poorly 
fed and scantily clothed. Under such treatment they 
generally came to an early death. 

The method of mining in this early time was often 
old-fashioned, for they had but little machinery. When 
the silver or gold was found near the surface, the dirt 
containing ore was thrown into a stream, where it was 
turned over and over by the water until it was washed 
from the ore. Sometimes it was necessary to go deep 
into the ground to find the metal. When this was the 
case two long timbers were set slantwise, with notches 
cut in them for steps, which the Indians used as a lad- 
der. From day to day they toiled up the rude steps with 
loads of ore upon their backs. Not being used to regu- 
lar and hard labor, the Indian soon broke down, when 
he was cast aside and others compelled to take his 
place. Thus Spain founded her industrial system in 
the New World upon slavery. In this particular as 
well as in the government she set up, Spain imitated 
Old Rome ; for, as we saw when studying in the fourth 
grade, when Rome grew rich and luxurious, she came 
to have millions of slaves, who did the work while 
Rome's citizens reveled in idleness, luxury and crime. 

The ore of the mine was melted, or smelted, and the 
pure metal taken out. At first this was done by hot 
fires blown by a bellows, such as you have seen in black- 
smiths' shops. Afterwhile, a man in South America 
discovered a way to do this much more easily by the aid 
of quicksilver. Then the mother country required the 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 393 

colonists to buy quicksilver of her, and to give in return 
one-fifth of all the silver or gold smelted by means of it. 

Let us now look at the social life which grew up in 
the Spanish colonies. The Spanish colonist in gen- 
eral considered himself vastly better than the Indians 
among whom he lived, though some of the colonists 
married Indian wives. There were also sharp class 
distinctions between the colonists themselves. The offi- 
cers and their families, who came from Spain and re- 
turned as soon as they had grown rich, considered 
themselves much superior to the ordinary colonists. 
These latter were often old soldiers, who had been given 
grants of land in the new country to pay for past serv- 
ices. Those who were born in the colonies were called 
Americans, and were considered inferior to both of the 
other classes. These were seldom appointed to office. 
For example, of one hundred and seventy viceroys, who 
ruled in the department of Buenos Ayres, four only 
were Americans, the remainder being sent from Spain ; 
of six hundred and ten captains-general and governors, 
who ruled in the same viceroyalty, only fourteen were 
Americans. 

Towns often grew up around the forts which Spain 
established on the frontiers. The houses were gener- 
ally built of adobe, as sun-dried brick is called. Many 
of them were rudely built, with dirt floors and no chim- 
neys or fireplaces, as fire was little needed in this sunny 
land to keep them warm. As they also largely led out- 
of-door lives, houses were little needed for any purpose 
except shelter and to hang their beds of rawhide in. 
Some houses had board floors and were whitewashed 
without and plastered within. The better houses, for the 



394 SCHOOL HISTORY 

officers and richer planters, were built about an open 
square, like the houses of the old Romans, or the castles 
of the Middle Ages, and sometimes had beautiful foun- 
tains and flowers in the inner court. These were often 
richly furnished with furniture brought from Spain. 

The Spanish colonists themselves led a lazy, easy- 
going life in most respects. The country, as we have 
already seen,, yielded in great abundance; and since 
they could not make their own laws or elect their own 
officers, there was wanting that political stimulation 
which always kept the English colonists wide awake and 
ever on duty that their liberties should not be taken from 
them. The converted Indians did most of the work 
around the forts and monasteries, and it was easy to 
raise enough to eat. Many of them did not care to 
raise much more, for only a limited amount could be 
sent to Spain, and they were not allowed, as I have 
told you, to sell elsewhere. Sometimes when they took 
their produce to the seaport to ship it to Spain, the 
vessel would have a load without it, and it would be left 
to spoil. It was absolutely forbidden for one Spanish 
colony to trade with another. 

Great herds of horses and cattle ran wild through- 
out many of the Spanish colonies. There was plenty 
of meat to eat, and a horse for every one to ride. If a 
person of culture and refinement were traveling through 
the Spanish colonies, he was- freely entertained by the 
hospitable Spaniard, and if his horse became tired, he 
had but to turn it loose and catch another. At many 
times and places thousands of horses and cattle were 
slaughtered merely to reduce their number. 

The upper classes of the Spanish colonists were very 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 395 

polite. They were also very fond of games and sports, 
and, like the Romans in their degenerate days, had 
many holidays, on which great crowds of gayly dressed 
men and women gathered in the towns to watch bull- 
fights, cockfights, and other cruel sports. A dance 
would follow in the evening, where the brocades and 
velvets of the ladies and the brilliant Spanish uniform 
of the officers and soldiers made an interesting scene. 
The guitar and banjo we^e the accompaniments of every 
social gathering. Sometimes the people held carnivals, 
something like the Mardi Gras held now in New Orleans. 
Dressing themselves in as much pomp and glitter as the 
knights of the days of chivalry, they paraded through the 
town, masked themselves, crowded through the streets, 
broke over one another eggshells filled with bits of sil- 
ver paper or sweet-scented water, sang songs, danced, 
drank wine, and attended the bullfights and other 
sports. 

We may expect people thus devoted to idleness, 
luxury and pleasure to care little for books or schools. 
Indeed, in all the centuries of Spanish rule in North, 
South and Central America, there were no free schools 
ever established. There were always monastic schools 
at the monasteries, just as in the Middle Ages, where 
religion chiefly, and occasionally reading, writing and 
arithmetic, were taught. These were attended by the 
Indians who had been converted and had been induced 
by the monks to live at the monastery. Most of the 
people had little education themselves, and cared little 
for educating their children. When we come to study 
the English colonists, we shall see how vastly different 
is their thirst for knowledge and the efforts they 



396 SCHOOL HISTORY 

make to securely provide for it, from the careless igno- 
rance and indifference of the Spaniard. 

Now we must briefly look at the religious ideas Spain 
brought to America. We have already seen in the study 
of the Reformation that the people of Spain established 
in their own country but one religion. In our study of the 
Reformation, in the sixth grade, we saw also that Luther 
did not agree with the Catholic Church, and that many 
others came to believe as he did. So they and others 
separated from it during the sixteenth century and were 
called Protestants ; and this led to many Protestant 
churches being formed in many countries in northern 
Europe. But in Spain the king was determined that 
all should believe just one way in religious matters, and 
punished or drove from the country those who did not 
hold what he considered the true belief. He drove the 
Moors and Jews from the country, and by doing so 
deprived the nation of its most industrious, most intelli- 
gent, and in many cases most wealthy, population. He 
appointed a court to inquire carefully into what people 
practiced in religious matters. This court of inquiry, 
or Inquisition Court, as it was called, did many cruel 
things to the people who did not believe as the Spanish 
authorities thought they should. Many were burned 
or tortured, while thousands lost their lives because 
of their faith. It has been estimated that eight hun- 
dred thousand Moors were driven out of Spain by 
Philip III, who ruled from 1598 to 1621. His motto 
was, " Better not reign at all than reign over heretics." 
Some of the monks and priests in the Spanish colonies 
reported to the king and Inquisition Court that many of 
the newly converted Indians in America did not believe 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 397 

as they should. Some were burnt and many tortured. 
Then a request was sent to the king to ask for a branch 
of the Inquisition Court to be set up in America. The 
king consented, but was reasonable enough to say that 
the Indians were not well enough educated to know 
much about true church beliefs, and should not be 
tortured or burnt. But he said the Spanish colonists 
did know and should be made to believe as the authori- 
ties in Spain desired. The court was established in 
South America, and prevented different sects of religion 
from springing up there. As in the home country sev- 
eral were killed, and others tortured. This had the 
effect also of keeping the industrious and freedom-lov- 
ing Spaniard, who was driven from his home country, 
from seeking a new home in the Spanish colonies. When 
we study the English colonies, we shall see that when 
the Englishman was driven from home, he fled to the 
colonies of his own blood in America and immediately 
began to develop a freer Hfe there than existed at 
home. However, in judging of Spain's treatment of 
those who desired freedom in religious thought it is 
well to remember that it was in an age when no sect — 
either Protestant or Catholic — had come to practice re- 
ligious toleration to any extent, and that Spain's policy 
was not different in kind but only in degree from the 
policy of other nations and religions of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries. Spain, however, was differ- 
ent from England in preventing persons of various re- 
ligious faith from settling in her colonies. In this way 
she prevented free discussion, which, in religion as in 
all other subjects, is the best means of broadening 
knowledge and leading to tolerant views. 



398 SCHOOL HISTORY 

I have already told you something of the monks. 
In Spain there were four different orders, or great 
families, of monks. All were eager to come to the 
New World to convert the natives and obtain wealth for 
their order, and begged the king for permission. He 
gave his permission, for he knew wherever the monks 
set up a mission the Spanish king could claim the 
country. Soon many good and earnest men were trav- 
eling over New Spain, — as Spain called her possessions 
in America, — settling down in the most fertile valleys, 
converting the natives, and finally gaining vast wealth 
for their orders, just as the monks had done in the 
Middle Ages, when they pushed into the swamps and 
woods and converted the natives of Europe, and taught 
them patiently the lessons of monastic life. 

Generally two monks went together into the part of 
country where they wanted to found a mission, and 
made friends with the Indians by giving them cloth, 
pretty beads and the like. Here they made their home, 
and, after slowly winning the good will of the Indians, 
taught them their religion. 

These missions were generally close enough together 
that several could be overseen by one monk, who was 
put in charge, as a kind of superintendent, and who 
traveled from one to the other. As these Spanish mis- 
sions spread, of course Spain's claims spread farther 
and farther. It was in this way, chiefly, that Spain 
gained possession of such a large part of South Amer- 
ica, as well as California, New Mexico, Arizona and 
most of Colorado. 

These monks were often noble men and oftentimes 
tried earnestly to secure better treatment for the 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 399 

natives than was given to them by the soldiers and 
planters, and sometimes succeeded in making the offi- 
cers see to it that the Indians were not enslaved. But 
so strong was the love of gold, both on the part of 
the home country and of the officers, that the plunder 
of the natives was the rule, and millions of them, as we 
have seen, died under the inhuman burdens placed upon 
them, notwithstanding the entreaties of the best of the 
monks. 

Let us now see how the missionaries themselves 
treated the Indians. Those who had been converted, 
and who lived at a mission, were called neophytes 
(which means new converts) and were regarded as a 
part of the property of the mission. They must rise 
at sunrise, and, led by the priest, must march to the 
church and spend an hour in worship. Then came a 
breakfast of roasted barley. Then each went to his 
duty, some cooking food or weaving cloth, others mak- 
ing sandals or shoes ; some tended the orchards, others 
sowed and reaped the wheat and barley ; and yet 
others herded such of the cattle, horses, sheep and 
goats as did not run wild. All things were held in 
common at the mission, the labor of the Indians being 
considered as belonging wholly to the monastery, for 
which they received food, clothing and instruction. 
The monks gave great attention to instructing them 
in religious affairs, and, in their great earnestness to 
have them practice religious ceremonies, often gave 
them little other instruction. They were not generally 
overworked, and as the monasteries grew wealthy 
they came often to lead lives largely of idleness 
and pleasure. But one of the results of the monastic 



400 SCHOOL HISTORY 

life was that the converts were taught to depend on 
the monks, not on themselves ; in fact, the converted 
Indians were really the slaves of the monastery. When 
at last the missions were destroyed in the first half of 
the nineteenth century, the neophytes were scattered, 
and the work which the monasteries had done very 
largely tumbled into ruin. Here, again, Spain had 
slowly but surely failed to build this phase of her life 
in the New World upon freedom, and when the shock 
of a freer civilization came against it, in the nineteenth 
century, it fell. 

Thus we have seen Spain, by far the wealthiest na- 
tion in Europe in the sixteenth century, reach out her 
strong arm, and, during the three centuries following 
Columbus's discoveries, conquer and settle, in her way, 
a vast amount of territory in the New World. We have 
seen the Spanish conquering and claiming all of South 
America except Brazil, all of Mexico, Central America, 
and what is now Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona 
and California. Spain began her settlements a hundred 
years before the French planted a single permanent set- 
tlement in the valleys of the Mississippi and St. Law- 
rence, or the English had a permanent footing on the 
Atlantic coast. She traveled over the country much 
faster, claimed more territory, and planted settlements 
in a land of ease and sunshine, where wealth could be 
had with little toil. With these favorable conditions 
and this early start, why has not Spain and Spanish in- 
stitutions come finally to rule in the New World ? The 
answer is to be found in the fact that Spain did not 
bring to the New World ideas and institutions which 
taught the people self-support, self-dependence, and 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 401 

that slow, natural growth in tilling the soil, building 
manufacturies, developing trade and practicing econ- 
omy which make a people strong, free and self-reliant. 
While the English colonists were coming to America 
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to ob- 
tain freedom of religion, and were building Puritan, Bap- 
tist, Catholic, Quaker, Episcopalian and other churches, 
where free discussion and free worship gradually grew, 
the Spanish colonists were being held by the strongest 
grip to a single religious thought, which prevented 
free discussion and developed tyranny. While the 
English were learning the lessons of political free- 
dom by holding meetings in each township, county 
and village to elect their own officers and make their 
own laws, the Spanish king was sending officers from 
Spain to see that laws made in Spain and for Spain 
were arbitrarily enforced among the colonists. While 
the English were toiling slowly and patiently to root 
their institutions in their little farms cleared of the 
forest and stones and swamps by their own hands, 
the Spanish were plundering the natives for gold, re- 
ducing them to the condition of slavery on the large 
plantations or around the monastery, and living lives 
of pleasure and ease. While the English king was 
paying little heed to the slow but sure growth which 
was making the English colonists both free and wealthy, 
the Spanish king was drawing every ounce of gold 
and bushel of grain possible, back to the home country 
to support his large army, his luxurious court and the 
Inquisition. It is true that both England and Spain 
tried to rule their colonies for the mother country ; but 
the difference is that the English colonists came of theif 



402 



SCHOOL HISTORY 



own accord, and in spite of the home government began 
immediately to develop free religion, free government, 
free trade, a public school system, especially in New 
England, and to bring their wives and children with 
them to make the New World their permanent home ; 
while the Spanish colonists were sent to America by 
the king and for the king, and were compelled to hold 
to the religious thought and practice of a single faith, 
to obey the governor without question, to cultivate the 
field with slaves, to submissively send its products back 
to the king's table, to establish monastic schools, but no 
public system of education ; and only rarely did the 
highest class of Spaniards come to America to make it 
their permanent home. The English colonists had in 
themselves germs of new life ; the Spanish, germs of de- 
cay and death. The English colonist was like a young 
tree planted in new soil ; the Spanish, like a post driven 
in the ground : the one grew, the other decayed. 

Thus it came about that when the English colonists 
resisted the unjust laws of the king and Parliament in the 
latter part of the eighteenth century, it was natural, and 
with but comparatively little difficulty, that they became 
independent, and immediately united themselves into 
a great nation and continued the free growth of their 
already well-rooted institutions till they spread from 
Atlantic to Pacific during the nineteenth century. 

Thus we see that the Spanish colonists were always 
kept in check by the most despotic laws. We have also 
seen that the Spanish king drove the Moors, the Jews, 
and those accused of heresy from Spain, and in doing 
so lost more in national wealth, strength and glory than 
could be regained in all the mines of Mexico and Peru. 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 403 

As Spain's freer population was driven out of the coun- 
try her tyrannical population grew less healthy and her 
national life fell rapidly into decay. Many of her citi- 
zens became idle, many became beggars, — her looms 
stopped, her fields became wastes. With all this, the 
gold and silver mines in America began to fail in the 
eighteenth century, which led Spain to tax her citizens 
all the heavier to secure the food and clothing which 
she no longer produced herself, and to keep up the great 
army and the expensive court. By his strict laws of 
trade and taxation the king had destroyed commerce 
and made his nation a land of beggars. 

The tyranny of the king, the oppression of the clergy, 
and the unjust laws of trade, finally led, in the first part 
of the nineteenth century, to the rebellion of the Spanish 
colonies in America from the mother country. As they 
dropped away from Spain they came either into the 
possession or under the protection of the United States. 
The United States bought Florida in 18 19. Beginning 
with 1 82 1 and continuing for nearly twenty years the 
colonies of Mexico and Central and South America, 
largely under the leadership of General Bolivar, gained 
their independence of Spain, and set to work to establish 
independent governments for themselves. Since these 
colonies had been given no practice in self-government 
during the three hundred years of Spanish rule, they 
did not at first know how, and have not yet learned, to 
carry forward free government with such ability as has 
been shown by the Anglo-Saxon race. 

By the Monroe Doctrine, declared in 1823 by Presi- 
dent Monroe, we showed our sympathy for these revolting 
colonies by saying that if European countries, such for 



404 SCHOOL HISTORY 

example as Russia, Austria and France, should ally 
themselves with Spain, and help her to conquer the 
revolting colonies and hold them in subjection, we would 
regard such an act on their part as unfriendly to the 
United States. Thus the sympathy of the United 
States greatly aided the Spanish colonies to gain their 
independence and has been a constant protection to 
them ever since they became free, nearly seventy-five 
years ago. 

The people of Texas became as dissatisfied with the 
rule of Mexico, after Mexico had become independent 
of Spain, as they had been with that of Spain herself. 
They rebelled, therefore, in 1836, from Mexico, and 
Texas was annexed to the United States in 1845. This 
soon led to war between the United States and Mexico. 
At the close of this war, in 1848, and as a result of it, the 
United States obtained New Mexico, Texas, California, 
Arizona (except the Gadsden Purchase), and the greater 
part of Colorado. Thus was Spain's grip gradually 
drawn from every foot of territory within the present 
bounds of the United States. It was the final triumph, 
after three and a half centuries of growth in the New 
World, of the principles of the Teutonic-American 
race, represented by the United States, over those of 
the Roman-American race, represented by Spain. 
And this triumph was the triumph of liberty over 
despotism. 

When gold was discovered in 1848, and people rapidly 
rushed into California, the old monastic centers were 
destroyed and the Indians scattered. Even those 
Indians who had learned to farm, and owned land of 
their own, were driven away, often unjustly, and the land 



SPANISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 405 

was taken by the whites. Thus did the last living traces 
of Spanish civilization disappear from the boundaries of 
the United States, overrun by the stronger, freer life, 
which, in its onward march, was ever hungry for more 
land upon which to establish the free institutions which 
it had been developing and strengthening for a thousand 
years. 

Four hundred and six years after Spain gained her first 
colony (1898) Porto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines (the 
last colonies in the world still remaining to Spain) were 
freed from oppression through the assistance of the 
United States, and are now rapidly taking on new life 
and new hope through the freer schools, free govern- 
ment and new industries which spring up within their 
midst, when guided by the Teutonic hand, almost as 
quickly and abundantly as does the vegetation from 
their exhaustless soil. 

Thus have we seen the Spanish nation conquer and 
explore a vast territory in a mad rush for gold. We 
have seen her extend an arbitrary but loose government 
over such an extent of territory as to make her the 
greatest power in Europe in the sixteenth century. At 
the end of the nineteenth every foot of this territory has 
either torn itself away or been torn from her by another, 
and Spain, from being the greatest power in the world, 
has fallen to be one of the weakest. And why was this ? 
Because when Spain had a chance to stand for freedom 
she stood for oppression. When she had a chance to 
plant the New World with new thought, she turned her 
face backward and sought to plant it with the seeds of 
the Middle Ages. The parliament, the printing press, 
the free school, free labor and free discussion are the 



406 SCHOOL HISTORY 

mighty forces which move modern civilization. Spain 
gave none of these to America, hence her ideas and 
institutions here weakened and died. 

A nation is like a tree, — in order to live it must con- 
tinually grow ; and modern nations in order to live must 
grow on the sap of freedom — not freedom for the few 
but freedom for all. Spain lost this sap, both in the 
trunk at home and in the spreading colonial branches. 
The result has been decay in the trunk and complete 
loss of the branches. 

References 

Blackmar : Spanish Institutions of the Southwest ; Johns Hopkins 

Press, Baltimore. 
Moses : Establishment of Spanish Rule in America ; Putnam's 

Sons, N.Y. 
John Fiske : Discovery of America, Vol. I ; Houghton, Mifflin & 

Co., N.Y. 
Fisher : The Colonial Era ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 
Windsor : Narrative and Critical History of America, Vols. I and 

II ; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., N.Y. 
Hubert Bancroft : History of Central America, History of Mexico, 

History of California ; Harper & Brothers, N.Y. 
Fernald : The Spaniards in History ; Funk & Wagnalls, N.Y. 
Lummis : The Spanish Pioneer ; McClurg & Co., Chicago. 
Thwaites : The Colonies ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 
Kemp : Outlines of History for Graded and District Schools ; Ginn 

& Co., Boston. 
Study the biographies of Philip II, Philip III, Cortez, Pizarro, De 

Soto, Loyola, Bolivar, Monroe (in connection with Monroe 

Doctrine) . 



THE CHIEF IDEAS DEVELOPED IN AMER- 
ICA BY THE FRENCH COLONISTS 

For more than a hundred years after Columbus dis- 
covered America, France had made no permanent set- 
tlement on the American continent. But with the 
beginning of the seventeenth century she began in 
earnest to make settlements, first in Nova Scotia 
(1604), then on the St. Lawrence River at Quebec 
(1608) and at Montreal (161 1). From this time for- 
ward, for the next century and a half, French ex- 
plorers, as brave and daring as any that ever visited 
America, made their way up the eastward-flowing rivers, 
such as the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa, thence over 
the lakes to the west as far as the Rocky Mountains, 
thence down the southward-flowing rivers till they came 
to the mouth of the Mississippi. Thus, in a century and 
a half from her first permanent settlement in America, 
that is, from about 1600 down to 1750, France had 
discovered, explored, taken possession of and settled 
by a line of thinly scattered posts, the regions stretch- 
ing from the snow-fields at the mouth of the St. Law- 
rence to the canebrakes in Louisiana. France thus 
controlled the finest natural roadway — the St. Law- 
rence and the lakes — leading into the heart of the 
continent from the Atlantic coast; and she likewise 
claimed the Mississippi Valley, with its great river 

407 



408 SCHOOL HISTORY 

giving an easy entrance into the heart of the country 
from the south. 

No people, perhaps, ever had a better opportunity to 
found and build a great nation than the French had 
in North America. The soil, especially in the Missis- 
sippi Valley, was very rich, the climate upon the whole 
temperate, the rainfall abundant. It is true, the climate 
in the St. Lawrence Valley is not so favorable, the 
winters being long and severe, locking the country in 
ice for five months in the year, and making it difficult 
and expensive to raise domestic animals. It is too cold 
for growing corn and pumpkins, as can be done most 
successfully in the English colonies, — for example, in 
New York and Pennsylvania. Tobacco, which soon 
gave wealth and independence to the Virginia planter, 
could not be grown successfully on the St. Law- 
rence. The river likewise had rapids and cataracts 
in it over which boats could not pass, which, together 
with the fact that it was frozen over half of the year, 
tended to lessen the value of the St. Lawrence as a 
roadway for commerce. The lakes also were stormy 
and had but a small number of good harbors. But not- 
withstanding these drawbacks in the northern part of 
the French territory, the French soon passed from the 
St. Lawrence to the great central valley, where stretched 
for three thousand miles through the heart of the conti- 
nent the noble valley of the Mississippi, which offered 
a seat for a vast and wealthy empire, had France only 
been able to take advantage of her opportunity. Why 
was she not able to do so ? The answer lies in the fact 
that the ideas and institutions which France brought to 
America and planted here were not such as to make a 



THE FRENCH COLONIST IN AMERICA 409 

strong, self-reliant and independent nation. Let us see 
what these ideas and institutions were. 

France's chief motives in coming to America were 
three: (1) to trade in furs; (2) to convert the Indians; 
(3) to build up a government on the model of the one 
then existing at home — that is, one in which the king 
could do whatever he chose without consulting the 
people about it. Such a government is called an abso- 
lute monarchy. 

The region in which France settled was well adapted 
to the fur trade ; beaver, mink, raccoon and wolf were 
plentiful in the woods, and throughout the seventeenth 
and first half of the eighteenth centuries trading-posts, 
where furs were brought in from all parts of the coun- 
try by both the Indian and the white trappers, were scat- 
tered thinly along the river banks and lakes. From 
these interior posts the furrier carried his load by 
boat, canoes and pack animals back to the Atlantic 
seacoast and shipped them to Europe, where they 
were used as clothing by the wealthy classes. Now, 
in order to develop a large business in fur-trading, it 
was necessary for the French to cultivate the friendship 
of the Indians, who were good hunters and trappers, 
and also to leave the woods standing, since they were 
the home of the animals. Both of these were carefully 
done. The Frenchmen, in large measure, became chil- 
dren of the woods, the rivers and the plains, dressing 
and living in many cases much as the natives did. 
They cut down but little of the forests, which tended 
to secure the lasting friendship of the Indian, as it left 
him an excellent hunting-ground. 

Thus, when the decisive conflict came on between the 



410 SCHOOL HISTORY 

French and the English for the Ohio and Mississippi 
Valleys, in 1 754-1 763, the Indians were generally on the 
side of the French, and gave them valuable assistance 
in their final conflict with the English. But we should 
be mistaken if we supposed that none of the French 
colonists living in New France lived a settled life. 
Along the St. Lawrence Valley, the lakes, and at the 
most favorable points of trade on the Ohio, Wabash, 
and Mississippi, permanent settlements gradually grew 
up and the people carried on in a way other occu- 
pations besides hunting and fishing. Let us take a 
general view of this life. We may take Quebec as a 
typical French, colony, and having obtained a view of 
it we shall know pretty well how French colonial life 
was in all the settlements, for the life in all was essen- 
tially the same. 

Could we have paddled up the St. Lawrence toward 
Quebec in a birch-bark canoe any time, say from 1700 
to 1750, we would have seen along the banks of the 
St. Lawrence an old-fashioned civilization reminding 
us in many ways of feudalism. The streams were 
mainly the roadways in those days, and birch-bark 
canoes were their means of travel. As we approached 
Quebec we would have seen on either bank of the river 
and somewhat equally distant from each other the 
dwellings of the seigniors. This was the title given to 
the French nobles and officers among whom the Cana- 
dian land was divided by the king. The land was 
always divided into strips fronting on the river and 
extending back to the uplands. These narrow strips, 
with the many-colored vegetation upon them, would, in 
the spring and summer time, look much like broad rib- 



THE FRENCH COLONIST IN AMERICA 411 

bons, running side by side stretching back into the 
country from the bank of the river to the depth of 
the forest. Scattered about over these tracts of land 
we would have, seen a few huts. These were the homes 
of the servants, or habitants, as they were generally 
called. 

When the king in feudal fashion gave a piece of 
territory to the seignior he required that a certain part 
of it be cleared and tilled. The seignior did not gen- 
erally clear and cultivate this himself, but divided most 
of it among the habitants ; they, in turn, becoming the 
real cultivators but not the owners of the soil. The 
seignior in taking possession of his land was required to 
swear allegiance to the king ; and likewise the habitant 
was required to perform a ceremony of homage to the 
seignior before taking possession of his little farm. 
You see this is very different from the way it is in the 
United States, where the farmer generally owns the 
land he cultivates, and because he owns it takes a pride 
in improving it from year to year. Each habitant in 
the French colony was required to make an annual pay- 
ment to the seignior for the land which he cultivated, 
in money or produce, or in both. A common charge 
was a cent in money, and half a pint of wheat per year, 
for each five-eighths of an acre. Sometimes payment 
was made in chickens and egg£ h Payments were usu- 
ally made on St. Martin's day, ^nen all of the tenants 
mustered at the dwelling of the seignior. The barn- 
yard of the seignior on that day presented a lively and 
novel appearance when all the habitants, rich and poor, 
living on the farm, were gathered there with wheat, 
barley, swine, cattle, poultry, eggs and apples to pay 



412 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the rent to their lord. Thus the agriculture, such as it 
was, which developed in the St. Lawrence Valley was, 
in all essentials, a feeble imitation of European feudal- 
ism, which we studied in the fifth grade. And feudal- 
ism, as we then found, gave privileges, comforts and 
luxuries to the few, but imposed a hard and slavish life 
upon the many. 

The houses of the habitants, generally built on the 
river banks, were small cabins with wide overhanging 
eaves, and consisted of two rooms. The partition be- 
tween the two rooms was usually made of boards. 
Wooden boxes and benches oftentimes took the place 
of chairs. In one corner of the main room stood a 
heavy loom, on which the women wove the homespuns 
of wool and flax which clothed the family. On account 
of the severe winters, the walls of the huts were thick, 
and generally comfortable. At one end of the room 
was a huge fireplace, across which extended the long 
black arms of a crane. The crane consisted of an iron 
bar reaching from the side of the fireplace halfway 
across or more. On this bar the cooking vessels were 
hung and the cooking done for the family. 

The dwelling of a seignior was of course usually a 
much larger and more comfortable building than that 
of the habitant. The main part of it was but one story 
in height, but perhapsiO)hundred feet long. It had lofty 
gables and a steep roo^o being built in this way in order 
to shed the snow and to give a large room in the attic 
for bedchambers. Carpets were not known in them, but 
there were sometimes mats woven by the Indians. Near 
by the main building were the washhouse, barns, stables 
and sheds. Close by also was the circular stone mill, 



THE FRENCH COLONIST IN AMERICA 413 

owned by the seignior, where the habitants were re- 
quired to grind their grain and give the seignior a four- 
teenth part as toll for the grinding. 

Each seignior was supposed to erect a chapel on his 
great farm, where religious services should be held; but 
as many of them were not able to build one and as many 
of the habitants preferred rather to run the woods after 
beavers than to attend church, this requirement of the 
king was never strictly enforced. Those who had no 
chapel on their places were usually required, however, 
to help in the construction of a church at some village 
near by, either by donating material or labor. 

Thus you see that when the Frenchman did take up 
other ways of life than that of wandering through the 
forests for furs, he adopted largely the mediaeval ways 
of living. A few men of the upper classes owned the 
land, while those who settled upon it and tended the 
soil stood generally in the place of the lower vassals, or 
serfs, of the Middle Ages, who, having no permanent 
Interest in the soil, became either inhabitants of the 
woods, or led a careless, happy-go-lucky life in some 
feudal cabin, caring little for the morrow, and finding 
plenty of time for the violin, the song, the game and 
the dance. When we come to study the English colon- 
ists who settled along the Atlantic coast, and look at the 
institutions they set up there, we shall see that they had 
all but outgrown the ideas of the Middle Ages. There 
the general rule was for each man to own and till the 
farm he lived on ; and this fact made a vast difference in 
the property he was able tc Accumulate, in the feeling 
of independence which he "came to have, and the inter- 
est he took in maintaining the rights and liberties of 



414 SCHOOL HISTORY 

the country when these were in danger of being taken 
away. 

The mass of the people about Quebec were unedu- 
cated. There was not a public school set up in the 
French possessions from the day France founded her 
first colony at Quebec in 1608 till her power in America 
fell by Wolfe's conquest of Quebec in 1759. The seign- 
iors brought what few books they read from Europe, 
and as for the habitants, they generally cared nothing 
for either books or newspapers, and for that matter 
could not read. The leading object of education in 
New France was a religious one. The course of study 
was first intended to serve the church, second; to make 
obedient and unquestioning servants of the king. 

But the second great purpose for which France came 
to America was the conversion of the Indians. Brave 
and self-sacrificing priests tramped through the vast 
western wildernesses, setting up the cross at favorable 
places, and giving up their lives, if need be, to convert 
the savages to Christianity. Here again there was a 
great difference between the policy of the French and 
that of the English in the New World, in develop- 
ing and encouraging free religious worship. Among 
the English colonists were Congregationalists, Baptists, 
Lutherans, Moravians, Presbyterians, Huguenots, Cath- 
olics, Methodists, Jews, Episcopalians and Quakers, all 
learning to work together, but in New France one reli- 
gious faith only was allowed. Huguenots were excluded 
from the French colonies in 1685 as heretics, and Louis 
XIV by thus excluding tb^m from his empire beyond 
the sea destroyed his strongest support and the most 
fruitful means of increasing the population of his empire 



THE FRENCH COLONIST IN AMERICA 415 

in the New World ; for it was they who at this time 
constituted the most intelligent, most industrious and 
most loyal class of the French people — whether at 
home or in the colonies. 

The clergy in Canada, as in mediaeval times in Eu- 
rope, was very powerful in matters of government. At 
the head of the Church was a bishop, who lived at 
Quebec. Parishes were scattered about, with a priest 
at the head of each. All church officers were chosen, 
not by the people, but by the bishop. This again is 
the opposite of the tendency in the English colonies, 
where the church officers, as well as the beliefs of 
the Church, were growing more and more to be con- 
trolled by the people. But notwithstanding these de- 
fects, the Church was perhaps the best institution that 
the French brought to America. It was the only 
source of education for the scattered and unsettled 
population ; and while the government was despotic, 
corrupt and constantly undergoing change, the Church 
remained settled, and produced not a few brave men, 
who went through great sacrifices to elevate the rude 
and savage life, and became parents to the children 
growing up in ignorance in the American woods. 

The third motive which brought France to the New 
World was to establish a great empire here. Louis the 
XIV, who ruled France during the greater part of the 
seventeenth century and first of the eighteenth, 1643- 
171 5, dreamed as Spain had before of great colonial 
possessions in America. Louis' dream was that of a 
mighty colonial empire stretching through the heart 
of the continent from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the 
Gulf of Mexico, and from the Appalachian Mountains 



416 SCHOOL HISTORY 

to the Rockies, in which he should be absolute ruler. 
We must now see some of the more important details 
of the government which he established in America. 

At the head of the government of the colony was a 
governor appointed by the king. Close by his side was 
the royal intendant, also appointed by the king. He 
was the king's agent in the colonies, and served as a 
check and spy on the governor. The governor, how- 
ever, was superior in rank to the intendant, the troops 
being under his command. If, for example, a dispute 
arose between the colony at Quebec and some colony in 
New England, a very frequent occurrence indeed, the 
governor had chief command of the army, and was 
intrusted with the work of settling the difficulty. Cere- 
monies of homage were also performed before the 
governor. The intendant was required to make a report 
to the king each year of the things done by the gover- 
nor, and of every important detail of life which took 
place throughout New France during the year; and 
these reports to the king were a source of so great 
annoyance to the governor that he and the intendant 
lived such a cat-and-dog life most of the time that the 
king was continually engaged in trying to pacify them 
and quite frequently had to recall either the one or the 
other to France. 

The control of the colony was thus completely in the 
hands of the governor, the intendant, and the supreme 
council. They made the laws, saw that they were exe- 
cuted, and acted as judges in legal matters. The council 
at first consisted of the governor, the intendant, the 
bishop and five councilors ; the latter chosen, not by 
the people, as was generally the case in the English 



THE FRENCH COLONIST IN AMERICA 417 

colonies, but by the governor, intendant and bishop. 
The choosing of the councilors was a source of many 
quarrels ; so much so that after a while they came 
to be chosen by the king. The number increased to 
twelve in 1703. The councilors were rarely changed, 
and generally held office for life. 

The council had its attorney-general, who heard com- 
plaints, and brought them before the court if he thought 
necessary. There was a judge appointed by the king 
for each of the three districts into which Canada was 
divided, but these were under the control of the gov- 
ernor general at Quebec. Like the lords of the Middle 
Ages, the seigniors were given the power to decide 
certain minor cases between their habitants. They 
decided cases which did not involve more than sixty 
cents. Added to these courts was the bishop's court 
at Quebec, which tried cases which arose in the prov- 
ince of the Church. 

If we could have visited the governor's dwelling at 
Quebec on any Monday morning, we would have found 
the council in session in the antechamber. The members 
sat at a round table. At the head was the governor, with 
the bishop on his right and the intendant on his left. 
The councilors sat at the lower end of the table in the 
order of their appointment; the attorney-general also 
had his place at the board as the council's legal adviser. 
This handful of legislators, only sixteen at most, is a 
very different legislative body in manner of election, 
number composing it, class of people from which they 
were chosen, and power to act freely and independently, 
from the legislative assemblies which grew up in the 
English colonies. Usually the council did not work 



4l8 SCHOOL HISTORY 

very smoothly. The governor, the intendant and the 
bishop were often in disputes. The intendant, though 
third in rank, presided at the meetings, took votes, 
signed papers and called special meetings. He was 
given in some ways more power than any other official 
in the colony, and was constantly trying to increase his 
power. He controlled the expenditure of public money, 
had the power to call cases before himself for trial, and 
the power to issue ordinances, whenever he thought 
necessary, which had the force of law. A great many 
of these ordinances have been preserved to the present 
time. They were usually read to the people at the 
doors of the churches after mass, and related to a great 
variety of subjects, such as the protection of game, sale 
of brandy, caring for stray hogs, fast driving, value of 
coinage, weights and measures, building churches and 
settlement of boundary lines. For instance, if the 
officer who superintended the public highways reported 
that a new road was wanted, an ordinance of the intend- 
ant set the whole neighborhood to work on it. Or in- 
stead of a road it might be a church. But in every case, 
instead of the people managing the matter, it was all 
done by an officer of the king. 

Such is a brief sketch of the government of Quebec. 
It is a type of the kind of government which grew up 
in New France wherever government grew up at all. 
Its policy was to keep the colonists in the condition of 
children. There was not, as you have seen, a single 
officer chosen by the people. All were chosen, either 
directly or indirectly, by the king. No public meetings 
were permitted, no public discussion allowed. One 
of the intendants expressed the whole French policy 



THE FRENCH COLONIST IN AMERICA 419 

when he said, " It is most important not to let the 
people speak their minds." You can, no doubt, see a 
great difference in the training which the people would 
get in being ruled by a handful of officers, appointed by 
the king and for the king, as was the case in New 
France, and being ruled by town-meetings, as was the 
case in New England, where practically all the people, 
without regard to wealth or class, met and discussed 
freely their needs and made laws governing every detail 
of their local affairs. In New France the people were 
absolutely dependent upon the one central power vested 
in the king across the sea. They were never taught to 
think independently nor to do things for themselves. 
Arbitrary power always tends to make those, who rule 
corrupt and selfish ; those who are ruled, ignorant and 
dependent. The colonial history of Canada is an ex- 
cellent example of this result. 

What is the answer, then, to the question we stated 
at the beginning of our study of the French : What 
ideas did France bring over and plant in America? 
None that were new and full of growing power. She 
brought to America and sought to plant in the new soil 
ideas belonging to the Middle Age times. She had 
old ideas only for the new soil. In industry she planted 
feudalism ; in education, schools for the few, and those 
controlled entirely by the church; in religion, the com- 
plete sway of a single branch of the Christian Church ; 
in government she sought to plant in the heart of 
America the old Roman idea of absolute, despotic 
government, as it was then being carried forward by 
the most powerful despot in Europe, — Louis XIV. 

In the year 1754, France tried to take the last step 



420 SCHOOL HISTORY 

in making good her claim to the heart of North Amer- 
ica, by seizing the forks of the Ohio River. By doing 
this she hoped to hold the Spanish in Mexico, and the 
English between the Appalachians and the sea. It was 
here, at the doorway of the Great West, — the forks 
of the Ohio Valley, — that the first critical struggle for 
American freedom was fought. Free schools, free reli- 
gion, free industry, free government, were all at stake in 
the struggle. It was not simply a contest for the Ohio 
Valley, nor even for the great Mississippi Valley ; it 
was in its ultimate effect a struggle for the greater part 
of North America, reaching from ocean to ocean. So 
great was the issue at stake, that Mr. Fiske has called 
Wolfe's triumph, on the plains of Abraham, 1759, by 
which French power was practically overthrown in 
America, the greatest turning-point in modern history. 
And Mr. Green regards the defeat of the French at 
Quebec so important in the growth of our own institu- 
tions, that he calls it the beginning of the history of the 
United States. With the doorway open to the west by 
the conquest of the French, the English colonists could 
pass freely through the Appalachian Mountain passes, 
spread over the level Mississippi Valley, and take pos- 
session of the finest region for developing a great civili- 
zation, all things considered, in the world. This they 
quickly did after the French were defeated, and as they 
moved westward carried with them the seeds of free 
institutions, which they had been slowly maturing on the 
coastal plains on the eastern side of the Appalachians. 
The final treaty by which France surrendered her Ameri- 
can possessions to England, at the close of the French 
and Indian War, was in 1763. All east of the Missis- 



THE FRENCH COLONIST IN AMERICA 



421 



sippi, excepting two islands — Miquelon and St. Pierre 
— retained by the French as fishing stations, — was 
given to England; that west, to Spain. In 1800 
France secretly secured from Spain all she had given 
up west of the Mississippi, and for the short period 
of three years Napoleon dreamed again the dream of 
the old despotic rulers, as he saw visions of a great 
French empire in the heart of America. But it was too 
late in the history of freedom for this dream to become 
true. Since the close of the French and Indian war, 
thirty-seven years before, free institutions had pushed 
rapidly westward, and industrious, self-reliant men were 
demanding more room in which to plant free labor, 
free schools, free religion and free states. So, in 1803, 
in order to furnish further room for the western pioneer 
to expand, and also to give him possession of the great- 
est natural commercial highway on the continent — the 
Mississippi, — President Jefferson purchased France's 
possessions west of the Mississippi for fifteen million 
dollars. Thus French power and French despotism 
finally disappeared from America a hundred and ninety- 
five years after her first permanent settlement was made 
on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. France like Spain had 
fallen in the New World because she did not know how 
to build therein institutions for the people, by the people 
and of the people. Her institutions were built for the 
king and by the king. America was not the soil in 
which to plant the idea that men and institutions exist 
for rulers, but that rulers and institutions exist for men. 
Neither France or Spain had borne to America the new 
agents of thought and freedom which we saw developing 
in Europe in the sixth grade, — the parliament, the print- 



422 SCHOOL HISTORY 

ing press, the University, the public school, and free 
religious discussion. If the New World was to be free 
it was fortunate that both France and Spain should fall 
back to the Old World and give way for the unham- 
pered development of Teutonic liberties, represented at 
first in America by the English Colonies, and by the close 
of the eighteenth century represented by the rapidly 
growing American Union. 

References 

Thwaites : The Colonies ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 

Hart : The Formation of the Union ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 

Sloane : The French and Revolutionary War ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

Roberts : A History of Canada ; Lamson, Wolffe & Co., N.Y. 

Parkman : The Old Regime in Canada ; The Jesuits of North 
America ; Wolfe & Montcalm ; Pioneers of France in New 
World ; Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 

Kemp : Outlines of History for District and Graded Schools ; Ginn 
& Co., Boston. 

Study the biographies of Champlain, La Salle, Richelieu, Henry IV, 
Louis XIV, Marquette, Frontenac, Montcalm, Wolfe and Na- 
poleon. 



THE IDEAS WHICH THE ENGLISH COLO- 
NIES DEVELOPED IN AMERICA 

As we have gone forward in our history work from 
grade to grade, we have, no doubt, come to see and feel, 
to some degree, that great movements in history and in 
the lives of peoples are more or less closely related : 
that they do not begin suddenly, without cause, and end 
by chance, but that every great historical event is a 
result of what has gone before and affects what comes 
after. So at present let us look backward on the long 
warp and woof of history the loom of civilization has 
been weaving, gather up some of the threads already 
spun, and follow them forward as they are woven into 
our own American life. 

In the Crusades we saw that the Europeans had their 
thoughts greatly widened, and learned much about 
traveling by water and how to build better ships. This 
led to extensive trade routes to the East, and afterward to 
Columbus's epoch-making trips to the West. During 
the century in which Columbus was born, by the Renas- 
cence movement, we saw the European scholar enthusi- 
astically take up the art and literature of Greece and 
Rome, and begin to think for and depend upon himself. 
Partly as a result of this, many people of Europe began to 
demand greater individual freedom in religion ; and this 
in turn led to the Reformation. Along with these move- 

423 



424 SCHOOL HISTORY 

ments toward freer life, we followed also the growth of 
the English Parliament, and saw how, in England more 
than in any other European state, the people held on to 
their ancient Teutonic rights and worked out a system 
of free government. These germs of Teutonic liberty 
we saw were very old, being born many centuries before 
in the German forests. 

When Europe's trade routes to the East were de- 
stroyed by the Turks, during the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries, the steps already taken in travel and learning, 
during the Crusades and the Renascence, led the better 
scholars to say : " The earth is not flat, but round ; we 
are now able to build large, strong ships, and know 
much more than formerly about water travel. Let us 
sail west across the Atlantic Ocean, and reach the East 
by an all-water route." This was the thought of Colum- 
bus, whose home was Genoa, in Italy. Now, -you will 
remember that Genoa was one of the Mediterranean 
cities which grew so rapidly in trade and travel during, 
and just after, the Crusades, and also that the Renas- 
cence centered in Italy. So it is not strange to see 
that Columbus was one of the first to believe that the 
earth is round, and the first to act upon the thought, by 
boldly setting forth westward in order to reach the east- 
ern coast of Asia. In 1492, as we have seen in studying 
the Spanish colonies, he crossed the Atlantic in Span- 
ish ships, seeking a trade route to the East. This, 
however, was not his only purpose. He wished to 
Christianize the peoples he might find, as the Crusaders 
had attempted to do with Mohammedans and Turks, 
during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Thus, 
while it had now been two hundred years and more since 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 425 

all Europe was interested in the Crusades, something of 
the crusading spirit was still living and going on in the 
minds of the Spaniards. Instead, however, of reaching 
eastern Asia, Columbus in sailing westward found two 
continents and many islands stretching across his path. 
Thus our own country was discovered. Soon wonder- 
ful stories were spread by the printing press thoughout 
Europe of the newly discovered lands, and all of the 
leading countries hastened to send out men to explore 
them. All the nations of western Europe laid claim 
to portions of America, and the rule grew up that 
whoever first settled a country should have a right to 
hold it. 

The leading countries of Europe which made explora- 
tions in the great new West were Spain, France and 
England. Other countries, as Holland and Sweden, 
also explored and claimed portions on the Atlantic 
coast ; but their claims were soon overrun and swallowed 
up by the English settlements, and we will, therefore, 
only glance at them as we study the growth of the Eng- 
lish colonies. Before passing the efforts of Spain and 
France, however, in the New World, let us again call to 
mind where they attempted to locate. Spain claimed 
the southern part of North America, as far north as 
Florida. And, as we have already seen in the study of 
the Spanish colonies, during the sixteenth, seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries warriors, priests and miners 
scattered over Mexico and Central and South America. 
France sailed up the St. Lawrence River, and explored 
the Lake regions, and, pushing down the Mississippi, 
laid claim not only to what is now Canada, but to the 
entire Mississippi Valley. This left to England the ter- 



426 SCHOOL HISTORY 

ritory between Florida and the St. Lawrence Valley, 
extending inland to the Appalachian Mountains. 

This region claimed by the English is one of the 
finest portions of the North American continent, having 
a fine soil and lying as it does in the temperate zone. 
It consists first of a plain stretching from northern 
Maine to Florida, about forty miles in width in the north 
and increasing toward the south to a width of nearly two 
hundred and fifty miles. From this plain gradually 
rises, on the west, an undulating slope which stretches 
to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The 
Appalachians, though not very high, were in colonial 
times heavily wooded with forests and thorny under- 
growth and, having but few good passes in them, 
tended to keep the English ■ from scattering toward 
the west, as was the case with both the Spaniards and 
the French. But from north to south, throughout the 
Atlantic slope, communication was comparatively easy, 
and this made it possible for all the English colonies to 
grow gradually into a single compact life, commercially, 
socially and politically. Thus you see that though they 
were prevented from extending the roots of their institu- 
tions very rapidly toward the west, they planted them 
all the more deeply on the Atlantic slope, and thus 
were able to develop a firmer, hardier life for the con- 
flicts which they would meet with — forest, beast and 
man — as they spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

In studying the Reformation we saw how the Church 
of England became divided into sects having different 
beliefs, and that many Englishmen were persecuted and 
thrown into prison because they dissented from views 
held by the Established Church. A small band of these 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 427 

liberty-loving people, after wandering from England to 
Holland, where they lived for twelve or thirteen years, 
at last decided to come to America. They hoped to find 
in the New World a home where they could enjoy the 
freedom in religion which was denied them in their 
parent land. So in 1620, after a stormy voyage across 
the Atlantic, the Mayflower landed on the coast of Cape 
Cod Bay, carrying about one hundred men and women 
looking for a home and a spot in which to plant the 
germ of freedom. Some were farmers, some mechanics. 
All of them were " plain people" and all were used to 
work. They were Separatists from the English Church, 
exiles from their native land, and they had come as fam- 
ilies to tame the wilderness and establish therein their 
permanent home. ^ Before landing they met in the cabin 
of their ship, formed and signed an agreement, called 
the "Mayflower" Compact, promising to live together 
under laws which would be best for all of them and 
bring peace and growth to their settlement. With this 
their first Constitution made, they stepped from the 
wild sea to the wild land and began to make a way into 
the wilderness over the dead bodies of many of their 
little company, and against thickets, wolves and Indians. 
Being poor, they had borrowed money from London 
capitalists to come on, and had first to earn sufficient 
to pay this back, with interest at forty to fifty per cent, 
before a surplus for themselves could be begun. In 
all our studies thus far we have come to know the 
Anglo-Saxon people as brave in overcoming difficulties, 
and this little band of wanderers (or Pilgrims, as they 
have come to be called), in fighting the snow, Indians and 
death in the New World were as brave as any who had 



428 SCHOOL HISTORY 

fought the despotism of the king in the Old. The 
settlement grew very slowly, but in time they improved 
both their homes and the healthfulness of the place and 
began steadily to increase. Then they began to be 
joined by others who, like themselves, were seeking free 
homes and opportunities for free worship. 

In observing this early Pilgrim settlement there are 
many features which are very different from what would 
have been seen in either the French or Spanish colonies 
in America. The English colonists came of themselves, 
rather than being sent by the king, as was always the 
case with the French and Spanish. They did not come 
for furs or gold, but to plant permanent homes and to 
secure a place for the free exercise of their religion ; 
they formed their first constitution themselves (the May- 
flower Compact) instead of having it formed for them 
by the home government ; they themselves elected their 
own officers from the colonists instead of having them 
sent to them from the home country. 

While these Separatist settlers were struggling for a 
start in the New World, many English Puritans who 
still remained in the Established Church were growing 
tired of being restricted in their worship by the English 
king, and hearing that the settlers in New England were 
prospering, they naturally turned toward America. 
Thus in a short time began a period of rapid settle- 
ment. In 1628 Salem was settled by a party of Eng- 
lish Puritans, and in the same year the Massachusetts 
settlers were granted a charter by the king. In 1630 a 
fine, large-hearted Puritan, John Winthrop, who was 
Governor of the Massachusetts Company in England, 
came to America, bringing a large number of colonists 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 



429 



with him, who settled at Boston. This Puritan immigra- 
tion grew rapidly till 1640 (when better conditions 
were secured for them in England), and gradually the 
entire coast of New England became inhabited, almost 
entirely by Englishmen. As more settlers came, popu- 
lation slowly pushed inland; and in 1636 some of the 
freer spirits, searching for better lands, migrated west- 
ward through the forests to the fine Connecticut Valley. 
They were soon followed by many others, who made the 
settlements of Windsor, Weathersfield and Hartford. In 
1638 New Haven was settled, and later these western 
settlements on the Connecticut River were united in the 
colony of Connecticut. 

In 1636 trouble arose in the Massachusetts colony, 
because of the preaching of Roger Williams of Salem. 
Besides declaring that the settlers in Massachusetts had 
no right to the land unless they first bought it from the 
Indians, he said no state officer had a right to compel 
one to worship according to a particular religious 
opinion. He declared that every one should be allowed 
to worship as his conscience told him was right. This 
idea, as you see, was the ripening fruit of the germ of 
free worship planted by the Reformation. Now these 
colonists had come to America and suffered many hard- 
ships in order to live in peace and enjoy freedom of 
worship for themselves ; but here was a man who, as 
they thought, would overturn the cause they had sacri- 
ficed so much to establish, so they ordered him back 
to England. Instead of going back he escaped into 
the wilderness, and, with a few followers, made his 
way to Narragansett Bay, where he purchased land 
of the Indians, and began a little settlement which he 



430 SCHOOL HISTORY 

called Providence. He was soon followed there by 
more of his sympathizers, and when the settlement had 
grown larger Williams got a charter from the king. 
Thus the colony of Rhode Island was founded (1636), 
and grew up upon such principles of religious freedom 
that the voice of Williams was like that of John Baptist, 
crying aloud in the wilderness for a better way. And the 
way has grown better from his day to the present hour. 

So far, we have merely mentioned the time and a very 
few facts concerning the settlement of New England. 
Desire for freedom, both political and religious, was the 
underlying cause in each case, and this movement for 
wider liberties in the American woods is only a fuller 
fruitage of the ideas of liberty which we saw in germ 
among the early Teutons in the German forests, and 
whose growth we followed through the Middle Ages as 
it manifested itself in the Renascence, the printing 
press, the English Parliament, the Reformation, and the 
discovery of the New World. 

To-day New England soil is not very suitable for 
farming, but it was much less so then, covered as it was 
with stones and forests; thus the early settlers did not 
live on large farms, far apart, as they might have done 
if the land had been level and treeless, say like Illinois or 
Kansas, but they lived close together, on small patches of 
land. There were other reasons also which led to com- 
pact settlement. Many of them came in small bands, 
or groups, under the leadership of their favorite pastors, 
and chose for religious reasons to live close together so 
that they might easily attend church. We must not 
forget also that the land they came to was owned by the 
Indians, who of course objected to giving it up. For 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 431 

this reason it was necessary to keep close together in 
order to be strong enough to protect themselves from 
the savages in case of attack. Thus they grew slowly, 
fishing, hunting, farming a little, manufacturing much 
of what they needed by hand, and trading some with 
the Indians, from whom they got furs, wild meats, grains 
and other food supplies. What best shows their character 
is that they stayed through all kinds of hardships, stuck 
to their undertaking, and at length, through their own 
efforts, came to manage their local affairs with hardly 
a thought of being under the control of the king or the 
English government. 

As already said, the Indians gave them much concern, 
as they were liable to attack them at any time. For 
this reason the Puritan always went armed, whether at 
work or at church. Of course all went to church ; no 
one thought in those days of staying away without the 
strongest of reasons. Regularly each Sunday morning, 
the inhabitants of each settlement were called together, 
often in the smaller settlements by the beating of a 
drum, at the little log church, which was always sur- 
rounded by a high fence for protection against the 
savages. In answer to the call, could be seen the stern 
Puritans, each with his flintlock gun, accompanied by 
his wife and children, going to church. It was these 
brave, duty-loving people who, believing they were the 
Chosen People of God like the Hebrews of old, were 
planting the seeds of free religious worship on the 
bleak New England hillsides. But just as we saw 
Luther and Calvin severely punish reformers who 
wished to reform faster than they, so now the Puritans, 
having found the freedom they so much wished, could 



432 SCHOOL HISTORY 

not so far rise above the general thought of their time 
as to extend the same opportunity to others, — Roger 
Williams and the Quakers, for example. These they per- 
secuted and drove from their homes, though they were 
merely seeking to widen the privilege of freedom till 
every one should be given the right which both Pilgrim 
and Puritan had left home and native land to secure. 

But principles of liberty are like century plants or 
trees of the forest — they grow very slowly. It was so 
in New England. The Puritan, having come to Amer- 
ica for religious freedom for himself, had not enough at 
first to give to others, so, as already said, when Roger 
Williams asserted the right for every one, he was driven 
from the colony ; but only to set up in another corner of 
New England, on Narragansett Bay, a colony in which 
every one could worship as his conscience dictated. 
This was the first time in all history that a state was 
founded upon the principle of perfect religious freedom. 
It was this step, with others like it which followed in 
the English Colonies, especially in Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania, through the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies, that enabled the framers of the Constitution to 
make one of its noblest provisions : " Congress shall 
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." 1 

Now, having briefly examined the growth of religion 
in New England and seen that the principle of free 
religious thought was slowly developing there, let us 
look at the ideas of government planted among these 
colonies. 

The different New England colonies were governed in 

1 Const. U. S., Amendment I. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 433 

much the same way. The Pilgrims, as we have already 
seen, agreed in their compact on the Mayflozver to rule 
themselves by such laws as they themselves might en- 
act. As they were of the middle class and practically 
equal in rank, they had an excellent opportunity to es- 
tablish a government in which there should be no class 
distinctions or titles of nobility, but in which all should 
have equal opportunity and stand upon the same foot- 
ing. This principle of equality they immediately be- 
gan to set up by refusing to establish any ranks of 
nobility in the colonies. We have already noticed how 
the settlements were made up of groups of people. 
The territory covered by each group naturally became 
a district for local government. In England these 
small divisions were called townships, or towns. They 
were called the same here, and became the unit of gov- 
ernment. By unit of government is meant the district 
which had a local government of its own, and from 
which representatives were chosen. Of course, after a 
short time there were too many people in each colony 
for all to meet together to make their laws, so the 
voters selected representatives to meet in a legislature 
to make them. As we saw in our study of Parliament, 
in the sixth grade, they had been doing this in England 
ever since the time of Simon de Montfort, almost four 
hundred years before ; and while there was some im- 
provement here over the English system of govern- 
ment, we shall find them in the main following English 
customs. 

Now let us look at the government of the New Eng- 
land town or township. It was governed by a town- 
meeting just as the English town was governed by a 



434 SCHOOL HISTORY 

town-moot. Situated at the center of the township 
was the church, and near it was the town pasture, or 
common, with the schoolhouse, and the blockhouse, or 
fort, for defense against the Indians. All men, twenty- 
one years of age and over, and, in the leading colonies 
of Massachusetts Bay and New Haven, who were mem- 
bers of one of the congregations within the limits of the 
colony, were allowed to vote. Thus you will see that 
in the leading New England colonies church and state 
were at first closely connected. All of the voters assem- 
bled once a year, in March or April, before the spring 
planting. In early days the meetings were held in the 
church, but later a townhouse was built, in which the 
voters met. Notices of these meetings were posted in 
a public place, and when the people were all assembled 
(which at first they were compelled to do or be fined), 
the town clerk would call the meeting to order; they 
would select a presiding officer and then proceed to 
business. Here they voted taxes and selected their 
officers for the coming year ; provided for education, 
building roads, taking care of the poor, keeping up stock 
and like things. Here they also voted for the higher 
officers of the colony and selected representatives to the 
general court, or colonial assembly. Thus they were 
developing in the forests of America the same ideas in 
the same kind of an assembly which their Teutonic an- 
cestors had used in the German woods more than a 
thousand years before. In Rhode Island's early history, 
as well as that in the Connecticut colony, government 
was even freer than in Massachusetts, the adult citizens 
being allowed to vote without being required to belong 
to any church. Thus in looking at the government in 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 435 

the New England colonies, we see the same principles — 
self-reliance, free thought and free discussion — already 
seen in the development of the English Parliament, the 
Renascence and the Reformation, having a fuller and 
freer growth in the American wilderness. 

Having now seen something of the religion and gov- 
ernment of New England, let us look at another institu- 
tion which helped greatly to work out their liberties, 
namely, the public school. 

Near the townhouse or church in each New Eng- 
land village was a schoolhouse, and could we have been 
there and followed what was done in the town-meeting, 
we should have seen them appointing school officers, 
fixing their salaries, deciding what should be taught, 
and regulating every detail concerning their education. 
Next to the New Englander's passion for religion was 
his passion for education. By the time they had reaped 
their fifth small harvest on the shores of Massachusetts 
Bay, they had established a public school at Cambridge, 
and thereafter schools spread rapidly throughout New 
England. In Connecticut any parent who neglected the 
education of his children was fined twenty shillings (almost 
five dollars), and Massachusetts had a like law. Edu- 
cated English men and women traveling through New 
England in the seventeenth century noticed that almost 
every one could read and write. This was a constant 
surprise to Europeans visiting New England, for at that 
time both in England and France the majority of the 
common people were very ignorant, and in neither coun- 
try was there a system of common public schools. 
Almost immediately after the first public school was 
established, Cambridge was made a college for higher 



436 SCHOOL HISTORY 

education (in 1636), and in 1647 it was ordered that every 
township having fifty householders should appoint one 
within their town to teach all such children as should 
attend school to read and write, and that when any town 
should increase to one hundred families they should set 
up a grammar school, whose teacher should be able to in- 
struct youth as far as they might be fitted for the college 
of Cambridge. Now the chief fact about all these 
schools was that they were for all. And they were a 
great training-ground for teaching the lesson that all 
should be given an equal opportunity for education, for 
religious freedom and for taking part in the affairs of 
government. As the children met on equal footing and 
spelled their a-b abs, they were slowly and unconsciously 
spelling out the Declaration of Independence ; in prac- 
ticing their curves and pothooks they were getting that 
practice which finally helped them to write the Con- 
stitution of the United States. 

But this was not all that was done in the way of 
education. One year after the first public school was 
established a printing press was set up at Cambridge. 
Printing presses were soon to be found throughout New 
England. Probably no other machine ever invented 
has done so much for the liberty of man as the printing 
press ; and there was no other corner of the earth where 
the whole mass of the people would have held it with 
such a tight grip in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies as they would have done in New England if it 
had been proposed to take it from them. 

Land-holding in New England also tended to place all 
on an equal footing. Could we have traveled over the 
little farms in the valleys and on the rocky hillsides dur- 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 437 

ing these centuries, seen the prevailing extent to which 
every farmer owned his own farm, observed, the honor 
in which labor was held by every one, whatever his 
education, office, or social position, we should have seen 
in the main the same tendency toward equality of all in 
industry that we have observed in religion, government 
and education. How immeasurably different would the 
life in a French or Spanish colony have seemed when 
compared with all this. The people in one was some- 
what like a hive of drones, driven to work and sharing 
little in what was produced ; the other a hive of working 
bees, each striving to become queen, contributing and 
sharing with increasing equality in all that was produced 
in the line of wealth, or education, or religion, or gov- 
ernment, or social position. 

Let us turn now from New England to the colonies 
of the South ; that is, to Virginia and her neighbors, — 
Maryland on the north, the two Carolinas and Georgia 
on the south. 

In *i6oy } just thirteen years before the Pilgrims landed 
on Cape Cod Bay, a party of English people sailed into 
the mouth of the James River, Virginia, and made a set- 
tlement which they called Jamestown, naming it, as they 
did the river, after their king. These settlers came to 
America for a different purpose from that which led to 
the New England settlements. Many explorers sailing 
along the coast of America had gathered cargoes of 
fish, furs and minerals of more or less value, and on 
returning with them to England had reported many 
signs of gold on the Atlantic coast. At once a com- 
pany was formed for exploring for wealth. Thus for 
the most part the chief men of the Jamestown settlers 



438 SCHOOL HISTORY 

who first came were made up of Englishmen who hoped 
to win wealth by easy means. Of course they were dis- 
appointed when they found no gold. They did not wish 
to work themselves, and at first the settlement almost 
died out. Soon, however, new settlers came, bringing 
supplies, and the colony began to thrive. In time indus- 
trious settlers came who put the idle to work in clearing 
the fields and planting tobacco. The man who did 
most to keep the early settlement alive was Captain 
John Smith. As in New England the Indians at first 
caused them considerable trouble, but in time the set- 
tlers became too strong for them. 

There was a marked difference in the circumstances 
which surrounded these colonists and those of the New 
England settlers. First, the character of the country in 
which they settled was different. Virginia was espe- 
cially suited to farming. The Indians taught them the 
use of tobacco, and ere long, as there was plenty of 
land, many of them became owners of large tobacco 
plantations, many of these containing several thousand 
acres. Virginia, near the coast, is a low country with 
many streams ; for this reason each plantation, lying as 
it did upon the river bank, could have its own wharf, 
and there load its large crops of tobacco and grain and 
in return unload supplies received direct from across the 
Atlantic. For this reason largely Virginia built few 
towns. 

The South was also kept agricultural, largely from the 
fact that in 1619, and increasingly thereafter, negroes 
were bought and worked as slaves by the Virginia 
planters. These slaves, together with indented white 
servants, who outnumbered the negroes till near the 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 439 

end of the seventeenth century, were generally ignorant, 
unable to do skilled work and hence were employed 
almost entirely in the field. 

Let us see some of the further effects of slavery in 
the South. The first Virginia settlers, as already said, 
were of a rather aristocratic class, who did not like to 
work. Since they had slaves to do their work for them, 
they became more aristocratic as their wealth increased, 
and soon came to look upon slaves and white people 
who were poor as an inferior class. There was a great 
difference as you see between this and the society in New 
England, where every one worked and every man con- 
sidered himself the equal of every other. Neither could 
the Virginians meet in local groups and make their laws, 
as did the settlers in New England, because the plan- 
ters, scattered for miles, as they were, along the river 
banks, resided too far apart to easily and frequently 
come together to discuss and make their laws. Thus 
they did not have the town-meeting and township gov- 
ernment in Virginia, but instead of it the county govern- 
ment, in which only the wealthier classes took a hand 
in the management of affairs. In this county govern- 
ment they clung to the old custom of England existing 
since the Parliament of De Montfort (1265) ; i.e. that 
of sending representatives to their colonial assemblies. 
Thus Virginia, though not so free in her arrangement 
of political affairs as New England, nevertheless held 
on to the English principle of representative govern- 
ment in establishing her legislature. It was herein Vir- 
ginia that the first representative assembly in America 
met. In 16 19 two representatives, or burgesses, from 
each borough met in the church at Jamestown as the 



440 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Virginia Colonial Assembly. They sat with their hats 
on, according to the English custom, and in other ways 
imitated, perhaps unconsciously, the customs of the 
English Parliament. 

This assembly, composed chiefly of large planters, 
continued to meet annually throughout the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries. It did not train the slaves and 
lower classes in lessons of liberty, but it did train an 
upper class of gentlemen planters — as Washington, 
Henry, Madison, Jefferson, Monroe, and Marshall, who 
were as fierce in guarding liberty when it was in danger 
as a lion would be in guarding its cubs. When the 
English king attempted to take from the Americans 
their local rights in 1775, none saw sooner than these 
Virginians that the whole stream of Teutonic liberty 
was in danger of being stanched, and none strove more 
heroically with pen and sword to keep its current open 
and its waters pure. But, as already said, the South 
could not see in colonial times that this liberty should 
belong to all people, — not even to all white people, but 
those only who held slaves, much land and were well born. 

Although the Virginians had no town-meetings, they 
did not give up their old Teutonic community ideas 
in the slightest degree. At least once a year they had 
what was called a court day. On these days the people 
from far and near would gather on the courthouse 
commons, coming afoot, on horseback, in wagons, ox- 
carts and in river boats. Here they mingled together, 
— ■ the backwoods hunter, the owner of a few acres, the 
owner of thousands, the shiftless white, and the aristo- 
cratic planter, politicians, traders, negroes and all. Old 
contracts were settled and new ones made, lands were 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 441 

rented, property sold and transferred. This was all 
democratic in a sense, but it was democracy in which 
the ruling spirit was aristocracy. 

Having now taken a brief view of the general fea- 
tures of the government of Virginia and neighboring 
colonies, let us look at the Church. 

The early settlers were mostly followers of the Church 
of England, but they were not so strict that they did 
not admit other sects to the colony, although down to 
the time of the Revolutionary War they taxed others 
for the support of the English Church, whether they 
were members of it or not. They governed themselves 
in local matters in the parish, which was at first their 
unit of government. This was similar to the old English 
vestry government ; however, in the South, instead of 
all the people of the parish coming together to discuss 
religious affairs, as would have been the case in a New 
England colony, the vestry was composed of twelve 
men, chosen, at first, by the people, and afterward, as 
vacancies occurred, by the vestrymen themselves. In 
the vestry meetings they voted taxes, appointed over- 
seers of the church and of the poor, and selected their 
parish minister. After a time these parishes were 
grouped into counties for political purposes, and the 
county became the unit of government. 

Virginia had for a long time no common school system. 
One of their governors even said near the close of the 
seventeenth century that he thanked God that Virginia 
had no common schools and hoped that he might never 
see them there. There were reasons for all this. In 
the first place, the settlements were so scattered that not 
enough white children to form a common school could 



442 SCHOOL HISTORY 

have come together in one place, even if they had wished 
to do so. But the class distinctions of the South made 
the upper classes unwilling to have their children asso- 
ciate in school with the lower ranks. The wealthy 
planters either sent their children abroad to school or 
educated them by bringing teachers to their homes. The 
lower class of whites and the slaves were ignorant and 
generally thought of nothing better for their children, 
and were too poor to provide for it, even if they had. 
The same travelers who found all the common people 
of New England able to read and write were astonished 
at the difference in education among the masses in 
Virginia. The wealthy planters brought their reading 
matter from abroad, while the poor had neither time nor 
taste for books. Likewise, the printing press was late 
in reaching Virginia or any of the neighboring colonies. 
Without common schools, or books, or newspapers, or 
opportunity for voting for those who ruled him both in 
Church and state, the poor man of the South was chained 
to the lower rounds of the ladder, and had almost no 
chance to rise to a higher or freer life. 

Let us look now at the home of the typical Virginia 
planter. Grouped around the large plantation mansion, 
at a distance, were the cabins of his slaves. These* 
though often kindly treated, were under the most 
absolute control of the master. The white laborers 
scattered about on the plantation were reduced by 
slavery to the same level of life ; they were often more 
idle, shiftless and criminal than the slaves themselves. 
Within the walls of the planter's mansion itself there 
went forward daily a rather monotonous, dignified, sub- 
stantial style of life, often one bordering on elegance. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 443 

In many of these homes there developed a culture and 
grace born of travel and much association with people 
of refinement. Over all of his little plantation-king- 
dom the planter ruled as absolutely as a feudal lord 
of the Middle Ages ruled over the vassals of his 
fief. Indeed the southern life which grew up in Vir- 
ginia and the neighboring colonies during the first two 
hundred and fifty years of their history, was in spirit 
feudalism transplanted from Europe to the New World. 

As already said, there were other southern colonies 
much like Virginia. North and South Carolina, which 
were first settled in 1663, and Georgia in 1732, were 
much the same, because they too were suited to rice 
and cotton plantations and found slave labor profitable 
to the more wealthy class. However, these colonies 
were at first settled by a less aristocratic and more 
willing-to-work class of people. Finally, however, and 
especially in South Carolina, the population came to 
have a large body of negroes and white slaves, who 
worked on the cotton or indigo plantations, or in the 
rice swamps along the coast. The labor in the rice 
swamps was especially unhealthful, the atmosphere hot 
and damp, thus making it almost impossible for the 
whites to engage in field labor. 

Generally in these southern colonies much freedom 
of religious practice was allowed, and hence to them 
came Jews, driven from Spain during the Inquisition, 
French Protestants driven from both France and from 
Canada by religious intolerance, Presbyterians from 
Scotland and North Ireland, Quakers, Baptists and 
Methodists from other colonies and from England. 

Just north of Virginia was the colony of Maryland, set- 



444 SCHOOL HISTORY 

tied in 1634. Here, as in Virginia, tobacco culture was 
largely carried on. Here also there came to be some 
very wealthy planters, but the more common class of peo- 
ple made up the bulk of the population. In religion it 
was at first a Catholic settlement. Great freedom was 
allowed all sects of religion, as was the case in Penn- 
sylvania and Rhode Island, and all Christians, so long 
as Catholics had control of the colony, were allowed free 
worship whether of the Catholic faith or not. As in New 
England, at first assemblies of all the free voters were 
held in parishes ; but when Maryland had grown in 
numbers, taxes were assessed and laws made by repre- 
sentative assemblies. First the unit of government was 
the hundred, as in England, but later representatives 
were chosen by counties as in Virginia. 

Thus, in looking over the southern group of colonies 
we see English institutions springing up everywhere 
through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, — 
the county, or borough, the representative legislature, 
the parish and the same general movement toward free 
religious worship which we have previously observed 
developing in New England. The tone of free thought 
for the upper class in the South in colonial days was as 
truly English as that in New England ; the great dif- 
ference was that in the New England colonies these 
liberties constantly filtered down among the mass of the 
people and became more deeply rooted in the minds of 
the many, while in the South they were jealously guarded 
and held tightly in the hands of the few. 

Meanwhile, let us see what has been going on in the 
group of colonies between Maryland and New England, 
— Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 445 

We have seen that other countries than England held 
claims to American soil, and sometimes these claims over- 
lapped each other. Thus it came about that two or more 
countries might claim the same territory. The Dutch, 
for example, settled New York, which then included 
New Jersey, and had struggles concerning boundaries, 
both with .New Jersey and the English colonies to the 
northeast. They built the small village of New Amster- 
dam, which to-day is New York City. Along the banks 
of the Hudson they undertook a system of land owner- 
ship much like the old feudal system. They had free 
schools and popular assemblies. Meanwhile, settle- 
ments in Delaware were begun by the Swedes ; and 
although this small Swedish colony soon fell into the 
hands of the Dutch, the Swedes left the influence of 
their industry and thrift upon the people. But this 
Dutch territory, controlling as it did the front doorway 
— New York harbor — to the American continent, was 
entirely too valuable for England to lose ; and what was 
of more importance, it divided her northern and south- 
ern colonies. No complete union of the English colonies 
could be possible while the Dutch claims kept them 
apart. So in 1664, just fifty years after the Dutch made 
their first settlement in America, England conquered the 
Dutch settlers and brought the territory under her con- 
trol. This conquest also ultimately gave the English 
the key to the West through the Hudson and Mohawk 
valleys. 

There was yet a large strip of land, between New 
York and Maryland, containing another doorway to the 
interior of the continent. This was given by the king 
of England to William Penn, who sent settlers to it in 



446 SCHOOL HISTORY 

1 68 1, and the following year came himself and founded 
the city of Philadelphia. Penn and his settlers were 
Quakers, and believed fully in the freedom of thought 
established by the Reformation. They were very lib- 
eral minded, and invited to their colony people of all 
religions. Penn himself traveled through Europe and 
gave a general invitation to the oppressed of all sects 
to settle in his colony. The result was that oppressed 
people of all religious denominations came to Pennsylva- 
nia ; and as the same wide freedom came to be allowed 
in the other central colonies, many also settled there. 
Quite a number of Scotch Presbyterians settled in New 
Jersey, which had been purchased by Penn and his 
friends. Jews and French Huguenots thronged into 
these central colonies, especially into Pennsylvania and 
New York. 

The greatest freedom also grew up here in government, 
especially in Pennsylvania, and all laws made and taxes 
assessed came directly from the people. Penn bought 
the land from the Indians and by presents made them 
his fast friends. Means of education also grew from 
the very first. A writer says : " Three years had not 
passed after the landing of the first colony in Pennsyl- 
vania when the clank of a machine which had reformed 
Europe and caused America to be discovered could be 
heard under the shade of the Pennsylvania forests." 
He means, of course, the printing press. Nearly fifty 
years previously Massachusetts had set up her first 
press at Cambridge. It was by peace and not by war, 
by knowledge and not by gold, that the English colo- 
nies in America sought to found their institutions. 

By the middle of the eighteenth century Philadelphia 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 447 

became the leading city in America, which was quite 
natural considering her favorable situation and liberal 
laws. The middle colonies, especially Pennsylvania 
with her many different peoples, became a door through 
which liberal ideas entered the other colonies. Penn- 
sylvania settlers, pressing westward, when they struck 
the Appalachian Mountains were frequently turned 
southward. They poured down into the western parts 
of Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, and became the 
free, lusty, self-reliant forefathers of the rough back- 
woodsmen, like Boone, Sevier and Robertson, — just 
the kind of people, in fact, needed to push across the 
mountains in the last half of the eighteenth century and 
subdue the forest, the French and the Indians in the vast 
trans-Appalachian territory, and to carve out of it the 
states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illi- 
nois. 

All in all these central colonies, as they grew ever 
stronger, because of their many types of speech, blood, 
religion and government, living in fellowship together, 
none lording it over the others, were a pattern of what 
the great Union was to grow to be in the nineteenth 
century, when it should become a union of the States 
and the free home of every tongue and people. 

Thus we see in the middle part of the eighteenth 
century an American population reaching from Maine 
to Florida, having many kinds of people, but all being 
molded by one general set of ideas. All their institu- 
tions were English. In speaking of the local govern- 
ment in the colonies mention has been made of colonial 
governments. Not all of these were alike. There were 
three general kinds : First, Rhode Island and Con- 



448 SCHOOL HISTORY 

necticut had Republican forms of government ; that is, 
the people there elected their governors and other offi- 
cers. Second, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware 
were each owned by men who appointed the governors 
who ruled in them; for example, in Pennsylvania, William 
Penn or his descendants appointed the governor. These 
were called proprietary governments. Third, the re- 
mainder of the colonies were Royal Provinces, so called 
because their governors were appointed by the English 
king. But whatever their form or name, in all the colo- 
nies there were free local governments — either town- 
ship or county — and colonial assemblies elected by the 
people. They were indeed practically thirteen colonies 
of self-governing people. 

In 1704 (ninety-seven years after the founding of 
Jamestown) Boston published a weekly newspaper. It 
was only a half-sheet of foolscap in size, but was thought 
sufficient to contain all the news of the day. Best of 
all it was a beginning. Other newspapers were soon 
founded. In 1775 four were printed in Boston and 
as many more in Philadelphia. 

The free schools which were scattered through the 
central and northern colonies were the best supporters 
of the printing press. By the time of the Revolutionary 
War (1775) there were several higher schools of learning. 
Besides Harvard and Yale, the two leading universities, 
there were Dartmouth, Columbia, Princeton and Pennsyl- 
vania university, and even Virginia was seeing the need 
of schools, and with aid from the English king and queen, 
William and Mary, had founded a college named for 
them. It is nevertheless true that mental progress was 
slow in the slave region, and students were few. It is 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 449 

also true that slavery existed in the northern colonies, 
but as slaves in the North were generally used only as 
house servants, they were much fewer, better cared for, 
and did not greatly affect the character of the institu- 
tions among which they grew. Many attempts had been 
made to Christianize and educate the' Indians. Dart- 
mouth College, in New Hampshire, was founded partly 
for their education, and one Indian graduated at Harvard 
College, but not much was accomplished in way of their 
general education or conversion to Christianity. A public 
library was founded at Philadelphia in 1742 by Benjamin 
Franklin, and several smaller ones were soon after estab- 
lished in the principal towns of Pennsylvania. These 
were kept up by the people. New England also did 
much for the education of the general masses through 
the public library. Boston was already by the time of 
the opening of the Revolution showing a taste for music, 
painting, and other forms of art. 

If now, at the middle of the eighteenth century, we 
take a brief view of the English colonies, we shall see 
how much they differ from either the French or the 
Spanish. In. the English colonies were found hundreds 
of little local governments, cities, towns, townships 
and counties, — and each colony had a central colonial 
government, all practically in the hands of the people. 
Over the entire domains of the Spanish and French 
there was neither township, county, or colonial legisla- 
ture, — all government with them was carefully guarded 
and securely kept in the hands of the king. 

In the English colonies there had grown up side by 
side more than a score of different sects of religion, all 
stimulating and improving each other by free discus- 



450 SCHOOL HISTORY 

sion. In the French and Spanish colonies but a single 
religion was allowed. 

In the English colonies there were free schools, a 
free press and free public libraries ; in the French 
and Spanish colonies no free schools or public libraries, 
and a few small printing presses wholly under control 
of the king and the Church. 

The labor (north of the Potomac) in the English 
colonies was mainly free. In the French and Spanish 
colonies labor was either slave labor or based on feudal- 
ism. In short, the English were rapidly developing and 
extending the principles of liberty in all the institutions, 
— Church, state, school and industry; the French and 
Spanish were content to hold firmly to the ideas of the 
Middle Ages and strove to realize in America their ideal 
of a single ruler in government as well as a single faith 
in religion. 

Could the English colonists have gone on growing as 
they were, without outside hindrance, their progress 
would, no doubt, have been remarkable by the end of 
the eighteenth century. But in the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century they had to meet their first great 
obstacle to growth. As we have already said, the 
French claimed the Mississippi Valley. England also 
claimed it ; so, about the middle of the eighteenth century, 
when the English colonists tried to push their civiliza- 
tion westward through the doorways of the Appalachian 
Mountains opening into the Mississippi Valley, their 
right was disputed by the French. War soon came on 
between the English and the French colonists for the 
possession of the great valley, and especially did the 
trouble center at this time about the Ohio River, which 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 451 

was the great watercourse necessary for France to 
obtain in order to make sure her complete possession of 
the entire Mississippi system. 

it 

For the first time in the history of the English settle- 
ments the people of all the colonies came together and 
fought as if for a united country. It took some strong 
outside enemy to teach them the first lessons of united 
action. In this struggle the French had on their side 
most of the Indians except the six nations of New York, 
who assisted the English. The final struggle between 
the English and French for the possession of the heart 
of America came between 1754 and 1763, and in the 
latter year France made a treaty ceding to England 
all French possessions east of the Mississippi, except, 
as already said, the two fishing stations of Miquelon 
and St. Pierre. Spain, having helped France, was com- 
pelled to give up Florida. France, to make this loss 
good to Spain, ceded to her all the French territory 
west of the Mississippi. 

The effects of this war were far reaching. It removed 
all warlike enemies from the frontiers, opened up the nat- 
ural roadway to the West, left the English colonies more 
free to expand, and thus enabled them to develop their 
own resources without fear of being disturbed. As we 
have already noticed, it brought the people together and 
began to teach them the lessons of union on the battle- 
field. Representatives from some of the colonies had 
been meeting occasionally since 1643 to discuss their 
common interests. In 1754 a meeting, or Congress, was 
held at Albany, New York, where a plan for union of 
all the colonies was presented by Benjamin Franklin. 
His plan was adopted by the Congress but was refused 



452 SCHOOL HISTORY 

by the colonies. They had not yet grown sufficiently to 
see the use of a permanent union. 

The French having been removed from their path- 
way by the French and Indian War, the English 
colonies were again in a fair way to start on the road 
to free institutions with increased strength and hope. 
But again came a greater hindrance, and this time 
from England. That government had been put 
to great expense in the French and Indian War. 
They now thought the American colonists should be 
taxed to help pay this debt, and also to pay soldiers 
stationed in America to protect them. Probably the 
colonists would not at first have objected to this if they 
had been allowed representation in the English Parlia- 
ment, where they could have exercised the privilege of 
voting taxes upon themselves, which they rightly re- 
garded as one of the greatest principles of English 
liberty and necessities of free government. 

Again, the English government would not allow 
America to trade with any country except England, 
and required that all colonial trade should be carried in 
British ships. The American farmers could grow and 
export products to England cheaper than the British 
could grow them, so England taxed the exports from 
the colonies to protect English farmers. The greatest 
grievance came, however, in 1765, when a law was 
passed requiring all colonial business papers, such as 
wills, deeds and the like, and newspapers, to be written 
on stamped paper, which was to be bought from Eng- 
lish officers stationed in the colonies. 

All of these laws were aggravating to the colonies and 
naturally drove them together to resist them. The colon- 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 453 

ists felt that they were being unfairly treated, and when 
later troops were sent to Boston from England to en- 
force the laws, a united complaint went up from all the 
colonies, in all of which great men arose to protest 
against despotic rule. How could such a tyrannical 
government be imposed upon the colonists by a people 
whom we have so frequently spoken of as loving liberty, 
and as having struggled for it for hundreds of years ? 
The answer is found in the fact that this oppression to 
the colonies did not come from the wish of the English 
people in general, but rather by the arbitrary will of 
the king — George the Third — and from a few influ- 
ential friends who composed his Cabinet, and who were 
able for a time to control Parliament. There were many 
members of the Parliament which passed the tyrannical 
measures who said that the Americans were struggling 
for liberties as old as the Anglo-Saxon race itself, and 
that to destroy their liberties would be to destroy the 
foundation principles of the English Constitution itself. 
But the English government, as already said, led by a 
half-crazed king, was in the hands of men who had no 
sympathy with common people, or with English liberties, 
and to them the trouble of the American Revolution 
was due. 

The principle that people should not be taxed except 
by their own representatives was five hundred years old, 
at least in England, when the American Revolution 
began, and the colonists would not consent to have this 
principle destroyed. At first, true to their nature and 
long training in English moderation and representative 
government, they employed discussion — the peaceable 
method of settling the difficulty. They discussed the 



454 SCHOOL HISTORY 

matter in the press, they argued it in their town-meet- 
ings and colonial assemblies, they published tracts and 
books upon it. But failing in these peaceable means, 
they " appealed to the Supreme Judge of the world for 
the rectitude of their intentions " and then took up 
arms. 

In September, 1774, a body of representatives, called 
the Continental Congress, met in Philadelphia, and de- 
termined to resist the unjust laws of the king. And 
when, on July 4, 1776, the same body declared that the 
thirteen colonies were and of right ought to be free and 
independent states, the declaration was not only gladly 
received by the majority of the colonists, but also by a 
large proportion of the English Commons at home. 
Already, when this declaration was made, the Revolu- 
tion had been going on for over a year, and George 
Washington had been placed in command of the Amer- 
ican army. The war had been begun for local colonial 
rights, but persuaded by such men as Samuel Adams 
and James Otis of Massachusetts and Patrick Henry of 
Virginia, colonial rights had now grown to a demand for 
complete independence. 

You must not think, however, that all the colonists 
wished for independence. In spite of all the wrongs 
done them by the king's government, many were not 
willing to separate from England. Those who re- 
mained loyal to the king were called Tories, or Loyalists. 
Since a considerable part of the English common people 
sympathized with the colonists, and did not desire to fight 
against the liberties which had enabled their own nation 
to grow so great, King George and his Cabinet concluded 
to hire German soldiers to fight the Americans. This ag- 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 455 

gravated the American soldier as perhaps no other event 
of the war, and did much to gain the sympathy of foreign 
nations for the colonies, especially that of France. 
Throughout the entire struggle, from 1775 to 1781, when 
Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the Americans were 
led by Washington, whose wisdom, unselfishness and 
patriotism make him one of the greatest men in all his- 
tory. General Washington's task in keeping the colo- 
nial army together was a most difficult one, for the 
Continental Congress had no power to furnish money 
or supplies. They could only ask for help from each of 
the States, leaving it to their own choice whether they 
would give assistance or not. But as Congress was able 
to borrow from France and from private individuals, the 
war was continued until a great victory over the English 
army at Saratoga, in New York, in 1777, convinced 
France that the Americans would win. After this 
France willingly gave assistance, almost immediately 
sending money, soldiers and commanders ; French vol- 
unteers likewise came, foremost among whom was 
Lafayette. With this help Washington, in 1781, cap- 
tured the British commander Cornwallis and his entire 
army at Yorktown, Virginia. This practically ended 
the war, but the treaty giving the Americans complete 
independence and all the territory east of the Missis- 
sippi except Florida was not signed till 1783. 

This is but a brief sketch of the Revolution ; but 
the most important fact to see is, that English liberty 
was in danger in the hands of the despotic king ; and 
it was most fortunate, not only for the American 
States but for the whole English race as well, that 
there was still a people among whom this liberty yet 



456 SCHOOL HISTORY 

lived in its original Teutonic strength, and a leader 
whose remarkable powers both in war and peace 
enabled him to guide this people both on the battle- 
field and in the council hall, in such a way as to save 
these principles of freedom not only for themselves 
but for England as well. In crushing tyranny in 
America, Washington thus became one of the greatest 
benefactors of the entire Teutonic race. 1 

America, by the effects of the war, became thirteen 
" free and independent states," as it is expressed in the 
Declaration of Independence. But now that they 
were free, a still more difficult question arose : How 
could they best govern themselves so as to preserve 
the liberties they had just won ? Some wished for 
each state to set up practically a separate government 
for itself, but the majority favored some kind of union. 
They were in reality one people, with the same lan- 
guage and institutions, and had been brought much 
more closely together than ever before by the fellowship 
gained through the French and Revolutionary wars. 
They were mainly familiar with one form of govern- 
ment. All of them were used to living under some kind 
of written constitution and of having their government 
controlled by it. All were used to electing their own 
representatives. Now that they were free states, they 
had all reorganized their governments upon the same 
representative assembly plan, with judicial system and 
elective governors under state constitutions. In 1777, 
during the Revolutionary War, a plan of union had 

1 Study here the Declaration of Independence. And have students 
memorize the first two and last three paragraphs of it, after talking them 
over with the children and making sure that they see the meaning of them. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 457 

been adopted by the Continental Congress. This plan 
was drawn up in a document called the Articles of 
Confederation. They were not satisfactory to all of 
the states, and some were slow in adopting them. 
Meanwhile they were being discussed by the states, 
and in 1781 were ratified by all of the states as the 
form of government. 1 

On the whole the Articles provided a poor plan of 
government. The states under them were much like 
the staves of a barrel without hoops around them. 
While leaving each state its own legislature, governor 
and judicial system, it did not bind them together by 
a strong central power ; that is, the central government 
had no real power over the states. The union could 
not make general laws for the states nor settle difficul- 
ties which arose between them respecting boundaries 
and the like, nor tax them for national support. The 
government was without a head, and while it was given 
the right to raise and keep an army, make war and peace, 
make treaties with foreign nations, etc., so long as it had 
no authority over the states and the individuals in the 
states to compel obedience, these powers were useless. 

However, it was the best they knew at that time, 
and they made the most of it. Through their failures 
they learned valuable lessons of how to form a stronger 
union. During the eight years it was in operation, 
from 1 88 1 to 1889, trouble constantly arose between the 
states regarding boundaries, money, and trade, and 
between the Congress and states regarding taxation. 

1 Study here the Articles of Confederation, and especially observe the 
large extent of power granted to the States by the Articles, and the absence 
of independent power granted to the central government. 



458 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Many times they were on the verge of war among them- 
selves and in danger of destroying the liberties they had 
struggled so hard to secure. Throughout all these dis- 
putes the wisest men in the colonies strove through press 
and legislature and council to hold the states together. 
By the French and Indian War, the land northwest of 
the Ohio River passed into the possession of England. 
By the Revolutionary War this same territory passed 
in reality into the hands of all the states ; but several of 
the states in their selfishness claimed these western 
lands and did not give them up to the Union, till be- 
tween 1784 and 1787. This land when surrendered 
was really folkland in which all were interested, and 
forcibly reminds us of the little Teutonic settlement 
which we saw in studying the early Teuton in the fifth 
grade. It was the same thing on a larger scale, and 
it is interesting to see how this old Teutonic idea of 
Public land was one of the foundation stones upon 
which we built our Union. 

Just after the close of the Revolutionary War a com- 
pany, called the Ohio Company, was formed, to secure 
and sell land in the northwest territory. It was the 
intention of the general government to dispose of this 
land to old soldiers of the Revolution at low prices, 
thereby helping them and also providing funds for the 
nation. Thus, while the people of all of the states 
claimed a share in such valuable territory, the individ- 
ual states were not so apt to withdraw from the Union. 

Just before giving up command of the army, Wash- 
ington explored the Mohawk Valley. What was much 
needed, he thought, were easy lines of travel between 
all parts of the country, especially between the East 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 459 

and the West ; for at this time the roads connecting 
the different parts of the country were generally very 
poor. Soon after returning to his home at Mt. Vernon, 
he turned his attention to the improvement of a trade 
route to the West, through the Potomac Valley. In 
order to carry out plans of importance it was thought 
necessary for Virginia to act with Maryland, and as 
the improvement would include the headwaters of the 
Ohio River, Pennsylvania was also invited to take 
part. Washington thought that while these states were 
about it they might agree upon an equal system of 
duties on imported goods, the coining of national money 
and other matters. And since the meeting was to be 
held, why not invite all the states to take part in it. So 
each state was asked to send representatives to meet in 
September, 1786, at Annapolis. Many of the states did 
not think the question of enough importance to send 
representatives, so nothing was accomplished except that 
another meeting was called for the following May, to 
meet in Philadelphia, to consider the matters mentioned 
and other matters that might arise. 

Almost every one was beginning to see that the gov- 
ernment of the Union under the Articles of Confedera- 
tion was a poor one, and the " other matters " referred 
to in the call for the second meeting hinted at some 
kind of reform in the Articles of Confederation. Thus 
came about the convention which put into written form 
the Constitution of the United States, many of the prin- 
ciples of which, as we have seen, were more than a 
thousand years old. And it is important to notice 
that this convention was composed of delegates chosen 
by the people and not by the states. 



460 SCHOOL HISTORY 

The assembly met at Philadelphia, May 25, 1787, and 
after completing its work, adjourned on the 17th of the 
following September. Washington was made president 
of the convention. Alexander Hamilton was a delegate 
from New York, Franklin from Pennsylvania, Madison 
from Virginia. There were sixty-two delegates in all ap- 
pointed ; fifty-five attended at one time or another, and 
thirty-nine members finally signed the Constitution. It 
was a meeting of many of the greatest men of the coun- 
try. Among its members were those who had sat in 
the Continental Congress and had signed the Declara- 
tion of Independence. It contained those who were in 
favor of a strong central government, those who were 
in favor of strong local governments, and moderate 
men who favored the harmonious balance of the two 
great governmental principles. 

The convention met in secret, for the delegates feared 
if it were known that the then existing form of govern- 
ment was to be changed, those who were jealous of local 
power might cause their work to be interfered with. 
Different plans were presented in the convention, and 
were followed by such stormy debate that it was often 
feared that the body would be compelled to adjourn 
without accomplishing any result. No one was there 
who did not realize the weakness of the existing form 
of government under the Articles of Confederation, 
but so many widely different interests were represented 
by the several colonies that it was hard to hit upon any- 
thing that would be satisfactory to all. Every one knew 
that under the Articles of Confederation the central 
government had not enough power, but the states were 
afraid to give it too much power. They had been 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 461 

driven to revolt against England by a government 
whose central power in the hands of a despotic king had 
become tyrannical. So, you see, among these delegates 
there was room for the greatest diversity of honest opin- 
ions and interests. Some would amend the Articles of 
Confederation, others would cast them aside and make 
an entirely new Constitution. Some especially guarded 
the agricultural interests of the South, such as the rice 
and indigo industry of South Carolina and Georgia, 
others the shipping interests of New England. The 
South saw to it that the right to hold slaves was care- 
fully guarded, while the North would have either dis- 
couraged slavery or entirely abolished it. 

After four months of discussion, during w T hich several 
of the delegates returned to their homes, either in de- 
spair or disgust, the Constitution was completed. After 
being signed, as already said, by thirty-nine delegates it 
was sent to the Continental Congress sitting at New 
York, to be submitted to the different states for ratifica- 
tion by the people in special conventions held therein. A 
great work had been completed in writing the Constitu- 
tion, but a greater was yet to be done in securing its 
ratification. It was a difficult task in the state conven- 
tions and in the press — that greatest of all means for 
public enlightenment — for the supporters of the Consti- 
tution to convince the delegates assembled, and the 
public which they represented, that the salvation of the 
Republic depended upon its ratification. But Washing- 
ton, Madison, Jay, Hamilton, Franklin, and others, who 
realized the critical stage through which the life of the 
nation was passing, at once began a plea for its adop- 
tion. By speeches and written articles which were 



462 SCHOOL HISTORY 

scattered broadcast among the people, they gradually 
won them to its support. The Constitution was subject 
to amendment, 1 and this did more for its acceptance than 
any other one thing. The people were urged to ratify 
it and then strengthen its weaknesses by amendments. 
So, as already said, it was sent by the Constitutional 
Convention to the Continental Congress and then sent 
by that body to the several states, in each of which it was 
voted on by a convention elected by the people for that 
express purpose. Delaware was the first state to accept 
it. Her convention met and ratified it almost immedi- 
ately on receiving it from the hands of Congress. The 
other states followed slowly, after hard-fought contests 
in some of them, and by July, 1778, all the states except 
Rhode Island and North Carolina had ratified it. Thus 
there had come about in one hundred and eighty years 
after the first permanent English settlement in America 
a Union of the American States under a strong Constitu- 
tion ; for the Constitution provided that it should be- 
come binding on the states ratifying when agreed to by 
nine states. 2 North Carolina became a member of the 
Union in 1789, and Rhode Island in 1790. To under- 
stand the Constitution we must study it directly and in 
detail, but we will notice here a few of its general provi- 
sions. First, it gave the Union a strong executive head 
— the President. It provides for two legislative bodies, 
an upper one, — the Senate, — and a lower one, — the 
House of Representatives. Each state has two sena- 
tors, while the number of representatives from any 
state depends on the population of that state. But 
perhaps most important of all, the Constitution estab- 

1 Constitution, Art. V. 2 Constitution, Art. VII. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 463 

lished a judicial system, headed by a supreme court and 
having circuit and district courts extending over the 
entire country. This was a very great improvement over 
the Articles of Confederation, and by its authority to 
settle difficulties arising between the states and between 
citizens of different states, it has contributed in a pow- 
erful way to the peaceful and harmonious working of 
our government. 

The Constitution as a whole gave to the American 
people a strong central government, binding the country 
together into a close union of states ; and while it has 
power to force them to remain true to the Union, it also 
protects them and shields them from foreign enemies 
and from domestic quarrels. The Union is composed of 
states ; the states of districts ; the districts of counties ; 
the counties of townships, or parishes. It is the noblest 
example in all history of one government composed of 
many, and many governments united in one. 

Thus is our Union based upon the two great princi- 
ples of free government thus far studied — a strong 
central government to watch over and guard the general 
interests of the people, such, for example, as coining 
money, regulating commerce and forming treaties — 
and equally strong, active local governments in which 
the people can directly manage their home affairs, such 
as education, religion and laws concerning property. 
The first principle — that of strong central power — was 
first taught to the world by Rome ; the second, that of 
local government, was given to the world by the 
Teutonic race, and especially by the Anglo-Saxon branch 
of it. The people of the United States, in forming their 
Constitution, thus based their Union upon principles 



464 SCHOOL HISTORY 

which had been growing for more than two thousand 
years. But in doing so, they have only made it the 
more firm. The great importance of the United States 
in the history of the world is that, as a nation, it has 
set up a pattern for all free peoples as no other nation 
has done, a government in which these two vital prin- 
ciples of free government have been equally adopted, 
safeguarded and developed. In this particular the 
United States has not only given her own people liberty, 
but has become a great inspiration to other nations who 
are struggling to work out their social, political, religious, 
industrial and educational freedom. 

Study the Constitution of the United States, with special view of 
seeing the powers granted by it to the general government on the 
one hand, and those left to the states on the other. 

Discuss with pupils the most important provisions of the Con- 
stitution, then have pupils memorize them : e.g. Preamble ; Article I, 
Section 8, Clauses 1-18; Article II, Section 10, Clauses 1-3; 
Article III, Section 2 ; Article VI, Section 2. Amendments : Arti- 
cles I, IX, X, XIII, Section 7 ; Article XIV, Section 7 ; Article XV, 
Section 1. 

References 

1 . Lodge : A Short History of the English Colonies in America ; 

Harper and Bros., N.Y. 

2. Thwaites : The Colonies ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 

3. Fisher: The Colonial Era ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

4. Channing : Students 1 History of the United States ; Macmillan 

& Co., N.Y. 

5. Sloane: The French War and the Revolution; Scribner's Sons, 

N.Y. 

6. Fiske : Beginnings of New England. Old Virginia and Her 

Neighbors. The Middle Colonies. The Critical Period. The 
Revolutionary War; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 



DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH IDEAS IN AMERICA 465 

7. Walker: The Making of the Nation; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

8. McMaster: History of the People of the United States, Vol. I ; 

Appleton & Co., N.Y. 

9. Kemp : Outline of History for Graded and District Schools ; 

Ginn & Co., Boston. 

Old South Leaflets : Declaration of Independence, Articles of 
Confederation, Ordinance of 1787, Constitution of the United States ; 
Directors of Old South Work, Boston, Mass. 

Study the biographies of Winthrop, John Smith, Roger Williams, 
Penn, Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Hamil- 
ton, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Washington. 



EIGHTH-GRADE WORK 

The chief aim of the eighth-grade work is (i) to help pupils to 
see how the consciousness and sentiment of union gradually grew 
in the minds of the American people from 1789 — when they began 
to work under our present Constitution — to 1865 — when it was 
definitely decided by the Civil War that our government is in reality 
an indissoluble Union, and (2) to see the cementing of the different 
parts of the nation since 1865, and the development of stronger and 
broader bonds of union than would have been possible without the 
extinction of slavery. The pupil should be led to see and feel that 
the government under which he lives, by developing freedom of 
religion, freedom of labor, freedom of the press, freedom of the 
ballot, freedom of education, and by prohibiting titles and ranks of 
nobility, is further unfolding and preserving for posterity the pre- 
cious principles and ideas which he has seen slowly developing 
throughout the work of all the lower grades ; and that, since the 
past through great effort and sacrifice has bequeathed to him these 
principles of liberty, it is his duty as a student of history to enlarge 
and develop them in whatever avenue he works, by carefully pre- 
serving and diffusing these liberties among his fellow-men. 

Suggestions 

1. Both teacher and pupil should make constant use of the Cod 
stitution throughout the work of the eighth grade, and from a care- 
ful study of its text, the pupil should be led, to considerable degree, 
to reason from the Constitutional provisions to the great questions 
which arose in our history. For example : Had Congress a right 
to charter a United States Bank ? (See Preamble and several Pro- 
visions in Article I, Section 8.) Had Congress the right to use the 
public money to make internal improvements ? (See Preamble 
and several Provisions in Article I, Section 8.) Had Congress the 

466 



EIGHTH-GRADE WORK 467 

right to pass the Alien and Sedition laws ? (See First Amendment 
to the Constitution.) Ought Congress to have passed the Embargo 
Bill, stopping for a time the shipping of the country ? (See Article 
I, Section 8, Clause 3.) Had Congress power to abolish slavery in 
the public territory ? (See Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 ; also 
Article IV, Section 4, Clause 1.) 

2. Assign lessons by topics, and teach pupils how to use refer- 
ence books in the investigation of these topics. It is the writer's 
experience that the best history work cannot be done in the grades 
from the fourth to the eighth inclusive without well-selected refer- 
ence books both for teacher and pupils. A text-book is, as its title 
implies, a book of texts. These texts should be greatly enlarged 
upon by the use of other books. 

3. At times have pupils to write upon topics and afterwards 
discuss the same orally before the class, — for example, such topics 
as those given above : or, compare and contrast the advantages of 
the Atlantic Slope with the Mississippi Valley as a place for a great 
civilization. Present the arguments both for and against the Louisi- 
ana Purchase of 1803. Should slavery have been allowed to go into 
the public land west of the Mississippi ? Should the negroes have 
been given the right to vote as soon as they were freed ? etc. 

4. Good history work is impossible without constant use of maps 
and historical atlases. Climate, soil, rainfall, rivers, mountains, 
slopes, harbors, mineral, plant and animal productions must be kept 
constantly in mind in order to explain the historical development of 
any people ; and this is especially true in making clear to pupils the 
great difference between the institutions of the North and those of 
the South in our own country which finally led to the Civil War. 

5. The teacher must constantly strive to lead the child to see 
a?id feel the life of the time he is studying by use of map, picture, 
illustrative story, reference books, and by skillfully turning the 
history which she is teaching into problems to be imagined and 
reasoned upon. The pupil is thus gradually led to realize that 
history is not a book, but the struggling life of humanity out in the 
world ; and that to study history is not merely to read it in a book 
but rather to enter heartily into the struggle, and by entering into it 
to have one's life enriched and constantly transformed into a higher 
and finer one through noble service to others. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 

i 789-1902 

We have now come to a time when the American 
people began to live under a form of government in 
some particulars different from any ever worked out 
before. This was a federal government, providing for 
two great things : first, for a strong independent central 
power deriving its authority from the people ; and 
second, for strong local or state governments, likewise 
deriving their powers from the people. It was thus the 
desire of the framers of the Constitution to form a 
government in which the states should work harmoni- 
ously with the central government, like many little cog- 
wheels working in one great central wheel. 1 Although 
we found the English government to be the freest and 
best developed in Modern Europe, yet, in the hands of 
a selfish king like George III, the self-reliant Anglo- 
Saxon living in America found it impossible to live 
under it and enjoy the freedom he was determined to 
have. The central power under the English king grew 
too strong, and hence, as we have seen, the Americans 
declared themselves independent, manfully gained their 
independence in the war of the Revolution, soon after 
formed the Articles of Confederation, hoping thereby to 

1 Const., Preamble ; Art. IV, Sect. 4; Art. VI, Sect. 2; Amendments, 
Arts. IX, X. 

468 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 469 

form a government in which a few could not secure 
supreme control at the expense of the liberties of the 
many. But, as we have seen in our study in the seventh 
grade, in less than ten years of trial of the Articles, 
they were found insufficient to give the Americans 
a vital, permanent nation, able to tax its citizens and 
control and guarantee the liberties of its people; for, 
from fear of too strong a central government, the fram- 
ers of the Articles had gone too far toward the opposite 
extreme and had placed the real power in the hands of 
the states, leaving the central government " no stronger 
than a rope of sand." 

From this experience came the Constitution of 1789. 
The Articles had kept the idea of American nationality 
alive in the minds of the people, and had bridged over 
the interval of slow national growth till it was possible 
to form a government in which there should be an equal 
balance between state and nation, and in which the 
people might have opportunity to develop the greatest 
possible liberty. Our eighth-grade work consists in fol- 
lowing the developing national life of the American 
people and in seeing whether the Constitution proved 
to be what was claimed for it. Has it made of the 
American people one great free nation, instead of a 
number of jealous independent states ? 

First let us look at the extent of our country in 1789. 
It consisted of thirteen states stretching along the 
Atlantic coast from the territory of Florida, which at 
that time belonged to Spain, to the line dividing Maine 
from Canada, and included the great stretch of territory 
extending westward from these states to the Mississippi 
River. It was by and for the people living in these 



470 SCHOOL HISTORY 

lands that the Constitution was written and ratified. It 
was founded upon an agreement between the people and 
was itself the fundamental law by which they were to be 
governed, — in other words, a set of rules ordained and 
established by themselves as the source of authority and 
to which they must yield obedience; and henceforth, when 
any question of law should arise, they would, through 
their officers, turn to these rules to decide what to do. 

The United States became a nation under the Consti- 
tution in 1788, nine states having ratified it; and in the 
following year, on April 30, 1789, General Washington 
was inaugurated first President of the Republic. Every 
one knew how much he had done to gain the independence 
of the colonies and to cement them into a strong nation ; 
so it was natural that the universal desire should have 
been to have such an unselfish patriot placed at the head 
of affairs to set the new governmental machinery going. 
At the end of his first term (1793) he was again chosen 
President. By this time, however, political parties were 
arising. Let us see how this came about. 

There were many who opposed the ratification of 'the 
Constitution when it was placed before the conventions 
in the several states, because they thought it gave the 
central government too much power. Now that the 
Constitution had been adopted, they set about to hold 
as strictly to its provisions as possible; These were 
called Strict Constructionists. Those who had favored 
and worked for the Constitution, wanted to give the 
central, or Federal, government a great deal of power ; 
that is, they desired to interpret the provisions of the 
Constitution in such a way as to give authority for the 
central government to do much toward regulating com- 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 471 

merce, establishing banks, building roads, imposing a 
protective tariff and the like. These were called Broad 
Constructionists. 

Of course, what the Constitution did or did not allow 
was a matter to be decided in the first place by the Con- 
gress and executive officers in the regular performance 
of their work, but finally by the Supreme Court. Thus 
there came to be two parties in the United States : those 
who were in favor of a strong Federal, or central, gov- 
ernment, who took the name of Federalists, and those 
who were opposed to a strong central government, who 
until 1792 called themselves Anti-Federalists. Although 
the rise of these parties began during Washington's 
terms of office, the principles which they advocated 
were not clearly set off till after his last term, for 
Washington held all the people well together and made 
up his Cabinet of advisers from men of both parties. 

First, he chose as Secretary of State, Thomas Jeffer- 
son, the writer of the Declaration of Independence and 
now the leader of the Anti-Federalist party. For 
Secretary of the Treasury he chose Alexander Hamil- 
ton, as ardent a Federalist as Jefferson was an Anti- 
Federalist. Besides these, he appointed Henry Knox, 
a Federalist, Secretary of War, and Edmund Randolph, 
an Anti-Federalist, Attorney-General. Thus Washing- 
ton's first Cabinet was composed of two Federalists and 
.two Anti-Federalists. With these especial advisers in 
each department of the government, Washington put 
in motion the national government under our present 
Constitution. 

There were many trying questions which came up 
during Washington's first term which required great 



472 SCHOOL HISTORY 

insight and wisdom for settlement. One of the most 
perplexing difficulties was the providing of means for 
paying old debts contracted during the Confederacy, 
and for paying the running expenses of the government. 
This was given to Hamilton to work out and to report 
his plan to Congress. Hamilton, as already said, was 
Secretary of the Treasury. He had from the first been 
one of the strongest supporters of the Constitution, 
and now began to put life into it by showing the 
entire country how quickly he could raise taxes under 
it to pay the outstanding debts of the country. 

Besides our debts to France and other foreign coun- 
tries, the government owed a great deal of money to 
Revolutionary soldiers, and others, who had lent it 
money to carry on the war. But the government had 
no money with which to pay debts, so Congress, by the 
advice of Hamilton, passed a law, taxing certain articles 
brought into and sold in the United States, and the 
money thus obtained was used to pay the national debt. 
In this way a tariff, designed mainly for revenue, arose. 
Different articles, as wine, silk, tea, sugar, etc., were 
taxed when they were shipped into the country, and 
the money obtained was turned into the United States 
Treasury. But the government had also another way 
of raising money. Besides the tax on foreign goods 
brought into the United States, taxes were laid on cer- 
tain articles made in the United States, as, for example, 
so many cents per gallon on whisky. This was called 
an internal revenue tax, because it was placed on articles 
made in our own country for home consumption. This 
tax was resisted in 1793 by persons who were distilling 
liquors in western Pennsylvania, but it was forcibly 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 473 

collected by government officers. By examples like 
these, you can see how much stronger and firmer is 
the hand of the general government under the Con- 
stitution, in all these money matters, than it was under 
the Articles of Confederation. Millions of the national 
debt were paid during Washington's administrations 
through Hamilton's intelligent guidance of financial 
affairs. 

Another question which Washington was called on 
to settle (1793) was what our relation should be with 
England and France. England and France were at 
this time at war with each other, and France asked the 
United States for help, while England, also, was equally 
desirous of getting our help. Now, although France 
had helped win American independence, and had still 
due her from the United States a large sum of money, 
Washington knew that for our infant Republic to engage 
then in foreign war would endanger the government 
itself. He thus refused help, issued a Proclamation of 
Neutrality as between France and England, but directed 
arrangements to be made at once by the Secretary of 
the Treasury for paying France what was due her. 
Here the strength of the new Republic was beginning 
to show itself in our successful and independent deal- 
ings with foreign nations. 

It was during Washington's term also that the national 
bank was created, it being likewise a part of the financial 
plan of Hamilton. The capital of the bank was fixed at 
ten million dollars, of which the government owned two 
million, while the rest was held by the people. Ham- 
ilton saw that by leading the people to become interested 
in a national bank, they would also become interested 



474 SCHOOL HISTORY 

in the national government which created the bank. 
This was not just one banking house, but a system of 
banks, with its center in Philadelphia, and sub-banks or 
branches in other cities. The number of banks grew, 
as the number and size of cities grew throughout the 
country. The collected revenue of the country was de- 
posited in these banks, and they were to help the gov- 
ernment in making payments to government officers, 
such as postmasters, army officers and soldiers, all over 
the United States. The charter, or law, regulating the 
bank was passed by Congress in 1791, for twenty 
years. It would thus have a right to do business till 
181 1, but no longer, unless Congress at that time should 
renew the charter. In 1792 a mint was established at 
Philadelphia, by the government, for the making of 
United States money of gold, silver and copper ; 1 and 
at the same time, our decimal system of ten mills make 
one cent, ten cents one dime, etc., was begun. By 
means of the bank money and the money made by the 
mint the country was supplied with the proper means 
of carrying on its growing business. Placing the entire 
money system under the control of the central govern- 
ment made it vastly superior to what it was under the 
Articles of Confederation, when each state exercised 
the power to make its own money. So far, things 
seem to be moving on well under the new Constitu- 
tion. The people in general came slowly to have inter- 
est in the nation, as they saw it bringing peace, order 
and prosperity to them. 

The fact was, the country was not only growing 
richer and more populous along the Atlantic coast, but 

1 Constitution, Art. I, Sect. 8, Clause 5. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 475 

it was extending its population into the West. The 
Constitution provides for the admission of new states 
into the Union by Congress. 1 During the early years 
of the government three new states, Vermont (1791), 
Kentucky (1792), and Tennessee (1796) became mem- 
bers of the Union. This shows that there had been 
emigration westward. Our national life was seeking 
new territory in which to expand. From the time the 
first settlers stepped upon the eastern shore, almost 
two centuries before, they had slowly pushed westward. 
The most rapid progress was made in the northern and 
middle states. With their liberal ideas of institutions 
they took up the westward march. With ax and gun on 
shoulder, and the ideal of a free republic in heart and 
mind, they went forth into the Western wilderness to 
conquer the Indian and the forest, and to erect therein 
free states, free religions and free schools. It has been 
said that the entire history of the Anglo-Saxon race 
is that of an ever-increasing hunger for land. No 
country has furnished a better example of this than 
our own, for long before there were open roads west- 
ward, the farmers followed the hunter through the moun- 
tain passes, and built their cabins and planted their 
cornfields and tobacco patches in the wildernesses of 
Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. First came the fron- 
tiersmen, generally on pack horses, to the lands which 
struck their fancy. They built a blockhouse, without 
nails, to guard themselves from the Indians, cultivated 
the soil with rude tools, and lived by the products of 
rifle and hoe. This liberty-loving Teuton was repeating 
in America, with much the same tools, what he had 

1 Const., Art. IV, Sects. 3 and 4. Ordinance '87, Arts. I and 5. 



476 SCHOOL HISTORY 

done a thousand years before in conquering Europe. 
Later on came emigrants in wagons. The hardy New 
England pioneer, seeking a western home, would stop 
his horses or oxen in the wilderness, tumble out boxes 
and barrels, spade and ax, and set about building a rude 
shelter for his family and animals. This done, his next 
task was to clear the ground and prepare for his first crop. 
Very soon the church and log schoolhouse followed ; 
and it was not long till the newspaper appeared to help 
break the monotony of his isolated life and shed some 
rays of light into his wilderness home. 

Thus, you see, as the states on the Atlantic slope 
grew more populous the western territories were grad- 
ually being filled with lusty, vigorous Teutonic folk, and 
admitted to the Union on perfect equality with the old 
states. Although most of these settlers were rough, 
they took with them the ideas of organization. So 
strong is the American's disposition to organize and live 
in peace and order, that it has been said, if a number of 
Americans should be shipwrecked on an uninhabited 
island, the first thing they would do would be to hold a 
mass meeting and elect a chairman and secretary. It 
is not to be wondered at, then, that as rapidly as the 
wilderness fell before the ax of the frontiersman the 
statehouse, church, schoolhouse and printing press rose 
in his tracks. 

At the close of his second term, in 1797, against the 
desire of the entire country, Washington retired to his 
home at Mt. Vernon, Virginia, where two years later he 
died. 1 His successor, John Adams, had been Vice 

1 Study Washington's Farewell Address. The address may be obtained, 
5 cents a copy, of Directors of Old South Work, Boston, Mass. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 477 

President during both of Washington's administrations. 
In the autumn of 1796 he was elected President by 
the Federalists over Jefferson, the leader of the Demo- 
cratic-Republicans (as the Anti-Federalists were called 
from about 1792 to 1830). According to the Con- 
stitution at that time, 1 the candidate for President 
receiving the second largest number of votes became 
Vice President. Jefferson thus became Vice President 
under Adams. Since that time, however, the Constitu- 
tion has been changed so that the President and Vice 
President are voted for separately. 2 

Adams served only one term, and his administration 
is marked mainly by the stand taken by Kentucky and 
Virginia in regard to some laws passed by Congress. 
The United States was having trouble with France 
and with England on the seas, and there were some 
Americans who wanted to bring on trouble with Eng- 
land by helping France, while others wished to help 
England against France. Because this help was not 
given they criticised Congress and the President, prin- 
cipally by writing articles in the newspapers. So 
sharply and bitterly did the Americans side with one 
nation or the other that a foreigner traveling in this 
country at that time said that he found here many 
Englishmen and many Frenchmen, but no Americans. 
To stop this criticism two laws were passed by Con- 
gress, called the Alien and Sedition laws. The first 
gave the President right to send out of the United 
States, without allowing him trial in court, any alien 
whom he thought dangerous to the country. You can 
easily see that such a law would give the President enor- 

1 Const., Art. II, Sect. 1, Clauses 2 and 3. 2 Const., Amendments, Art. XII. 



478 SCHOOL HISTORY 

mous power if he chose to exercise it. The sedition 
law provided for the punishment of any one who should 
speak, write or publish anything false or abusive of 
either the President or Congress. While the first law 
was never enforced, under the latter several persons 
were fined and one was imprisoned. Very many people 
believed these laws to be wrong, for the first Amendment 
to the Constitution declares that the government shall 
have no right to interfere with the freedom of speech or 
of the press. As the last law seemed to do so, it was 
said by many to be unconstitutional. 1 

The people of Virginia and Kentucky went so far as 
to declare in their legislatures, that Congress, in passing 
these laws, had gone beyond the powers given to it by 
the people of the states when they formed the Consti- 
tution ; that such legislation was consequently without 
authority ; and that the people of these states, because 
of the powers reserved to them under the Constitution, 
would be justified in not submitting to these laws. They 
believed that each state for itself, and not the national 
Supreme Court, had a right to say when Congress had 
gone beyond its just powers. From this point of view 
the continuance of the Union would depend upon Con- 
gress exercising no power which the states individually 
believed to belong to themselves. Out of these ideas 
grew the doctrines of nullification and secession in 
later years. The alien and sedition laws were opposed 
by the Democratic-Republicans and by many of the 
Federalists ; so, as soon as Jefferson, the great leader 
of the Democratic-Republican party, became President, 
in 1 80 1, they were repealed, — that is, set aside by Con- 

1 Const., Amendments, Arts. I and VI. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 479 

gress. The Federalist party had now (1801) been in 
power twelve years, and had done great service in firmly 
establishing the national government at home, and giving 
it credit and dignity abroad. But the people, believing 
the Federalists were tending toward despotism in pass- 
ing the alien and sedition laws, voted that party out, 
and the Democratic-Republicans became in 1801 the 
ruling party. They now, however, shortened their name 
to that of Republican party. So from this time, down 
to about 1825, this party was known as the Republican 
party, while the opposing one, down to 181 5, was known 
as the Federal party. 

When Washington became President the national 
capital was New York City. In 1790 the capital was 
removed to Philadelphia, where it remained until 1800, 
when it was changed to Washington. Many objected at 
that time to having it so far west, for they had no idea 
that the United States would ever spread to the west as 
it has. But in 1803 this narrow notion of national 
growth began to change when Jefferson, urged forward 
by the desires of the people who had settled the west- 
ern wilderness, bought from France for "fifteen million 
dollars the Louisiana Territory. By this purchase the 
United States secured all the territory between Texas and 
Canada and westward to the Rocky Mountains, an area 
of over six hundred million acres, at a cost of two and 
one-half cents per acre. It is interesting and important 
to note that this great leader of the Republicans, Jeffer- 
son, who had up to this time maintained that the general 
government should do nothing but what the Constitution 
said plainly in so many words it might do, here acted 
upon the theory of the Federalists rather than that of 
the party to which he belonged, since the Constitution 



480 ■ SCHOOL HISTORY 

nowhere says expressly that the general government may 
buy foreign land. The far-reaching effects of the pur- 
chase can hardly be appreciated, for it not only gave the 
people of the United States possession of the mouth of 
the Mississippi River, so that they could freely ship 
their western corn, wheat, pork, tobacco and cotton out 
to foreign countries, but it also gave them the western 
half of the Mississippi Valley, — so broad, fertile, abun- 
dantly watered, so rich in minerals and so temperate in 
climate as to lead the great Humboldt to call it " the 
noblest valley in the world." 

There could have been no better time for such a pur- 
chase. The United States was again in trouble with 
France and England, both of which still continued the 
war with each other which had been going on most of the 
time for ten years ; and since, as warring powers, they 
greatly interfered with our commerce by capturing our 
trading ships as they crossed the ocean, Congress passed 
a law, called an embargo, barring, as it were, our ships in 
their harbors and completely stopping for a time our 
trade with all foreign countries. This destroyed a great 
shipping industry which had sprung up on the Atlantic 
and threw many people out of employment. Thus, just 
at the time when the eastern door of commerce — the 
Atlantic Ocean — was closed to labor the western door 
to vast virgin fields was thrown open to invite laborers 
to cheap western lands. Already settlers dotted the 
wilderness back to the Mississippi, especially along the 
streams. These self-reliant people made their way 
down the western slope of the Appalachian Mountains 
into the valley of the Mississippi, and, as already said, 
soon came to have more grain and stock than they could 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 48 1 

themselves use. What every western farmer, land 
owner and townsman felt the need of was an outlet for 
his surplus crops. They could not haul their wheat and 
corn and pork and beef and wool from the Ohio and 
Mississippi valleys eastward, for there were as yet no 
good roads binding the great central valley to the At- 
lantic coast cities. 

To meet this need came first the flatboat, and soon 
every stream was alive with boats bearing the western 
harvest down the current into the Mississippi and then 
down to New Orleans, from which port they made their 
way up to the Atlantic coast states, to the West Indies, 
and to countries across the sea. It was a long route, but 
the best that could be had until roads could be built from 
the Atlantic coast back westward over mountain and 
river, and through marsh and forest. The flatboat not 
only carried products out, but it brought thousands of 
settlers in. It had, however, one great disadvantage, — 
while it could with ease go down stream with the current, 
it was almost impossible for it to make way against the 
current and ascend the stream. 

This difficulty began to be remedied in 1807, for in 
that year Robert Fulton first applied steam to a boat in 
such a way as to turn a large paddle wheel in the water 
and move the boat, even against the current. With this 
invention came other great migrations of emigrants from 
the East to the West. Within a short time steamboats 
began to appear on every important river ; and now that 
Louisiana was a part of the national territory, boats 
began to push rapidly up the western rivers, carrying 
the hunter and trapper, the trader and farmer, and re- 
turned loaded with wheat, pork, tobacco, wool and corn. 



482 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Jefferson's two terms as President (1 801-1809) covered 
a period of growth and prosperity, but our trouble with 
France and England, chiefly concerning commerce on 
the seas, had not yet been settled ; so from the date 
when James Madison became President (1809) it was 
only three years until the United States was at war with 
England. We have seen how England and France, 
interfering with the commerce of the United States, 
had led Congress to pass the Embargo Act. In addi- 
tion to seizing our ships at sea, England insisted upon 
the right to search American vessels for British sailors. 
Chiefly for these things the United States went to war 
with England in 18 12. The war was opposed by the 
Federalists, especially by the shippers in New England, 
who found their remaining trade ruined and their sea- 
port towns attacked by the British. But Madison and 
the Republican party kept up the war, and hoped to con- 
quer Canada and annex it to the United States. An army 
was sent by Madison to undertake this, but the attempt 
ended in utter failure. Although unsuccessful on land, 
the Americans did better on the sea ; and not alone 
there, they also won great naval victories on Lakes Erie 
and Champlain, and thus prevented the invasion of the 
United States from Canada by water. The war was 
brought to an end in 181 5 by a treaty with England, but 
before the news could travel to America (there were no 
Atlantic cables then) a great victory on land was won 
by the Americans. The British attacked New Orleans, 
which was defended by Andrew Jackson with an army 
half the size of the British force. The English were 
very badly defeated and soon news of peace stopped 
further action. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 483 

Meanwhile, the New England Federalists (the chief 
shippers of the country) had grown dissatisfied, on ac- 
count of the war stopping their shipbuilding and com- 
merce ; and having called a convention at Hartford, 
they framed in it some propositions, identical in spirit 
and principle with the Virginia and Kentucky Resolu- 
tions, which they desired to have passed as Amendments 
to the Constitution. They asked, among other things, to 
be allowed to defend themselves against attacks on their 
coast, and also to retain a portion of the Federal taxes 
for this purpose. Thus, the Federalists — the original 
strong central government party — were here opposing 
the actions of the central government, and seeking to 
enlarge the powers of the states. Some of the New 
England states have been accused, but probably un- 
justly, of having intentions of withdrawing from the 
Union at this time. However, before the delegates of 
the Hartford convention reached Washington to bring 
the propositions before Congress, peace between the 
United States and England was declared (18 15). 

While there seemed to be very little in the treaty of 
peace favorable to the United States, England never 
again attempted to interfere with American commerce or 
to search American vessels for seamen accused of desert- 
ing from the English naval service. The war had also 
another great influence : as it stopped New England 
shipping, for a time people turned to other means of 
making a living. With their great advantage of swift 
streams, giving unlimited power for turning wheels, New 
England was especially suited for carrying on manu- 
facturing ; hence mills sprang up there, and manufac- 
turing rapidly became their leading industry. 



484 SCHOOL HISTORY 

As soon as the war was ended, and trade was re- 
sumed with England, English merchants began sending 
great quantities of manufactured goods to the United 
States. Being new in the work, and having to pay a 
higher price for labor than the English paid, the Ameri- 
can manufacturer could not make goods as cheaply as 
the English ; and as the English were thus enabled to 
undersell them, the Americans feared that their business 
would be ruined. To prevent this they sent representa- 
tives to Congress, who asked that a heavy tax be placed on 
imported goods, so that, by the time the English import- 
ers paid this tax they could not afford to sell so cheaply 
as the American makers could. As I have already said, 
manufacturing had grown greatly during the past few 
years, and seeing that this industry must be weakened, if 
not destroyed, unless a higher tariff were imposed, Con- 
gress consented to tax imported goods in order to pro- 
tect the home industry. In this way arose the first 
protective tariff. As you have already seen, a tariff had 
been placed upon imported goods as early as Washing- 
ton's first term, but it was a low tax, and mainly 
intended to raise revenue for the expense of the govern- 
ment. The tariff of 18 16 had for its main purpose the 
protection of goods produced in our own country. 

Madison, having served two terms, retired to his 
landed estates at Montpellier, Virginia, and was suc- 
ceeded by James Monroe, a Republican, who was also 
President for two terms (18 17-1825). It was during 
this time that he and his able Secretary of State, John 
Quincy Adams, gave to America what is called the 
Monroe Doctrine. Spain's South American colonies 
having rebelled, Monroe warned the Holy Alliance, 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 485 

consisting of Russia, Prussia, Austria and France, from 
assisting Spain in reconquering her colonies. He said, 
while America was determined not to interfere with 
affairs abroad, she was equally determined to allow no 
interference by the Holy Alliance in American affairs ; 
nor would the United States, he said, permit foreign 
nations to colonize any longer on the American con- 
tinents. The Spanish colonies were driven to their 
struggle for liberty by Spain's despotic rule over them, 
and they were, no doubt, greatly stimulated to struggle 
for freedom by the example of free government which 
they saw developing so well in the United States. 

So far we have said nothing of what was rapidly com- 
ing to be the most important question to the American 
nation, namely, the question of slavery. We know, from 
our studies in the seventh grade, of its introduction in 
America in 16 19; let us now briefly trace its growth. 
From the natural differences between the northern and 
southern parts of the United States, the two sections 
came to hold very different views on the subject. We 
must now see the views of both, and why each held the 
view it did. First, as to the North. The negro slave, 
being held in the most complete ignorance, was fit for 
no kind of labor except that which he could do with his 
hands. This was not the kind of work in the main the 
North had to do. We have already seen that the soil 
of the North (or what was the settled North) was fairly 
well suited for farming ; but instead of large farms, they 
were moderate in size, and the crops, especially in New 
England, had to be frequently rotated, which required 
intelligent supervision and care. Other laborers, except 
farmers, were largely engaged in manufacturing and 



486 SCHOOL HISTORY 

trade, and it requires education to successfully carry on 
both of these kinds of labor. Thus it came about that 
the ignorant negro could be used to little profit in the 
North. This, together with the fact that the North, 
on account of her small farms and many kinds of labor, 
could not have great gangs of slaves working under one 
overseer, were the chief reasons why the North had few 
slaves, and by the close of the eighteenth century 
began to want to get rid of what she had. Also, some 
people were coming to think it was morally wrong to 
enslave men and women just because they were ignorant 
and black. We have already seen, in the seventh-grade 
work, something of the plain, hard-working, liberty- 
loving people of the North, with their free schools, free 
churches and free press. It was these things which 
slowly inspired them with higher ideas of justice and 
right and caused them to wish slavery abolished from 
their midst. During the last half of the eighteenth cen- 
tury some of the people of the North and a few of the 
South had been doing what they could for the freedom 
of the slave. When laws were passed for the Northwest 
Territory, called the Ordinance of 1787, it was plainly 
stated that slavery should not be allowed there. 1 By 
the Constitution it was practically agreed to allow no 
more slaves to be shipped into the states from foreign 
countries after 1808, 2 and it was left to the original states 
to decide for themselves whether or not they would 
continue slavery within their borders. Many were com- 
ing to dislike slavery so much that by the time of the 
adoption of the Constitution all of the northern states 
except New York and New Jersey had freed their 

1 Ordinance of 1787, Art. 6. 2 Const., Art. I, Sect. 9, Clause 1. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 487 

slaves ; while even in the South many states had almost 
if not quite stopped the slave trade with Africa and 
between the states. 

As already said, this great movement against slavery 
in the North was only one of the channels in which 
their great ideas of freedom and progress were expand- 
ing. Freedom was also growing in the Church, for 
most of the states by 1820 had granted entire religious 
freedom in their constitutions. The free school and 
free press were not far behind the hunter, trapper and 
farmer as they moved forward on the westward march. 

In the South geographical conditions were different 
from those of the North. There, agriculture was the 
principal occupation. There, great gangs of slaves 
tended vast plantations. The great self-reliant middle 
class, which constituted the backbone of the North, was 
largely wanting in the South, and in its place was the 
" poor white class," as ignorant as the negro and often 
more criminal. The members of this class are not to 
be confused with the vagrants and idlers called by the 
negroes "yo' white trash" after the emancipation, but 
they were the poor and non-slaveholding whites who 
were renters, mechanics and overseers. While many 
in the South realized that slavery was an evil, they did 
not see how to emancipate their slaves without ruining 
themselves. As tobacco, cotton and rice were the main 
products of the southern states, the Southerners were 
anxious to have slavery extended. For the cultivation 
of these products, large farms were needed ; and as the 
products were hard on the soil, it was necessary to move 
westward to obtain new soil, in place of that worn-out. 
This led the southern planter with his slaves across the 



488 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Appalachians, first through Alabama and Mississippi, 
and then across the river into Louisiana, Arkansas, 
Missouri and Texas. 

Slaves had likewise become much more profitable in 
the South since 1793. Until that time, of the three 
products named, tobacco had been the most valuable, 
because rice grew only in the marshy country near the 
coast, and it was expensive and slow work to separate 
the cotton fiber from the seed, since a negro working 
all day could clean but a single pound. But in 1793 
Whitney invented a machine called a gin (or engine) 
for cleaning cotton, which would clean as much in a 
day a-s' a thousand negroes. From this time its culti- 
vation rapidly increased, and it soon became the most 
important southern product. With its ignorant negro 
population, and with the little flow of money into south- 
ern industry, it was impossible for the South to grow 
as the North did. There was not scattered over the 
southern plantations a class of white children thirsting 
for knowledge and free schools, as there was in the 
shops and on the farms of the North. In the South 
were but few intelligent white laborers developing manu- 
factories and trade, and building towns and cities ; few 
towns and cities made few roads, few banks, few printing 
presses, few newspapers, few books and comparatively 
few cultivated people. Moreover, the conditions of slave 
life do not permit of general education and culture. 
Slaves were sometimes taught by the southern mistresses 
to read and write, and they were allowed to attend 
church on Sundays ; still, for the most part, the slave 
population remained ignorant and superstitious. The 
South thought just after the close of the War of 1812 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 489 

that it might build up factories as the North had done, and 
it was, therefore, in favor of a tariff ; but it soon found 
that though ignorant labor may hoe cotton and tobacco, 
it cannot set type, run engines or manage factories. 

The condition of the slave in the South was, on the 
whole, a very hopeless and hard one. Grouped with 
many others under an overseer, he hoed the tobacco, or 
worked in the cotton, rice or cane field and received 
no more than would keep him well fed and clothed. 
He was considered as human property, and could be, 
and often was, bought and sold. He had no rights 
of his own and generally owned no property. His 
condition was probably hardest in the rice fields. Rice 
culture requires low wet ground which can be flooded, 
and which therefore becomes very unhealthy as a place 
of labor. There the negro worked among the swamps 
and insects in the malarial regions along the south- 
ern shores. In the hoeing season the slaves worked 
grouped abreast. The men wore broad-brimmed hats, 
the women, head-kerchiefs. Each carried in his mouth 
a stick, on the end of which was a piece of burning punk 
made from the heart of the oak tree ; the smoke from 
this drove away the sand flies, which would otherwise 
have driven him almost wild. This condition of labor 
made it impossible for the South to keep pace with 
northern growth; and this fact was seen by some of 
the wiser men of the South in the early part of the 
nineteenth century. But the southern institutions were 
so rooted in slavery that the southerners generally 
thought that to destroy slavery would be to destroy 
the foundation upon which all their civilization rested. 
Hence the southern planter lost no opportunity to push 



490 SCHOOL HISTORY 

slavery into western territory and have it carved into 
and admitted as slave states. By doing this he hoped 
to hold equal representation with the North in Congress, 
especially in the Senate (there being two senators from 
each state), 1 and thus prevent Congress from making 
unfavorable laws concerning the abolition of slavery, as 
more and more of the people of the North were begin- 
ning to wish done. Thus, as northern states were 
admitted with free constitutions, the South managed 
to have southern states "admitted with constitutions 
recognizing slavery. By looking at the map of the 
United States you will see how this was. Thus, after 
Vermont was admitted as a free state in 1791, Kentucky 
and Tennessee were admitted with slavery in 1792 and 
1796 respectively. This made the slave and free states 
equal in power in the Senate. 

So the movement westward into the Mississippi Valley 
went on both in the North and in the South. The result 
was the rapid settlement of western territories and their 
admission to the Union. Louisiana, being finely adapted 
to the growth of rice and sugar-cane, was admitted in 
1 8 12, slave; Indiana in 18 16, free; Mississippi in 1817, 
slave; Illinois in 181 8, free; Alabama in 18 19, slave: 
Maine in 1820, free; Missouri in 1821, slave. Notice 
that in the admission of states the number of free and 
slave states remained equal. In 1820 there were twenty- 
two states in the Union, — eleven free and eleven slave. 
Notice also that the boundary between the free and 
slave states was the southern and western boundary of 
Pennsylvania to the Ohio, and then down that river to 
the Mississippi. With the exception of Louisiana all 

1 Const., Art. I, Sect. 3, Clause 1. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 491 

this territory thus far admitted was east of the Missis- 
sippi, and it had not been decided by Congress whether 
or not slavery should be allowed to extend beyond that 
boundary. 

Soon after the War of 18 12 many emigrants from both 
North and South, on account of the land being more 
expensive east of the Mississippi, had crossed over and 
settled on the Missouri River. Their number rapidly 
increased as travel became more easy and safe both on 
the rivers and on the National road which the general 
government was building piecemeal from year to year 
through the great West. In 1820 those who had settled 
in Missouri territory asked to be admitted into the Union 
as a state. As many slave-owners from the southern 
states had moved into this territory, they wished Missouri 
to be admitted as a slave state ; but the North, being anx- 
ious to restrict the growth of slavery, thought if it were 
possible to prevent slavery from moving west of the Mis- 
sissippi, it might be possible at a later date to do away with 
it in the entire Union. The struggle which arose in Con- 
gress was a sharp one, the South being determined to 
carry slavery west of the Mississippi ; for since Maine, in 
1820, desired to enter the Union as a free state, the South 
felt that it was necessary to have Missouri admitted as 
a slave state in order that she might hold equal power 
with the North in the Senate. Thus you see the United 
States was rapidly becoming divided into two sections — 
one with its institutions based on slavery, the other with 
its institutions as firmly rooted in freedom. After much 
debate a compromise was agreed upon, which provided 
that Missouri should be admitted as a slave state, but 
that ever afterward all states formed from the Louisiana 



492 SCHOOL HISTORY 

territory lying north of 36 30' north latitude should 
be free. This was called the Missouri Compromise, and 
its chief supporter was Henry Clay, who was a member 
of the House of Representatives from the State of Ken- 
tucky. . . 

The slavery question in the new states now rested for 
near a quarter of a century, and tariff and the building 
of roads by the general government became the leading 
questions in the next administration. This was the ad- 
ministration of John Q. Adams, who w T as elected by the 
National Republican party in 1825 and served to 1829. 
The Federalist party, having become ashamed of its 
unwillingness to support the general government during 
the War of 18 12, had dropped its name, but kept the 
old principles of a strong central government, advocating 
a protective tariff, a United States Bank, and internal 
improvements by the national government. It called 
itself " National Republican" till about 1832, and then 
took the name "Whig," which it held till it took the 
name "Republican party" in 1856. The strongest 
opponent of Adams was Jackson, the hero of New 
Orleans. Jackson was a supporter of the principles of 
Jefferson, but he was especially the leader of the new 
self-reliant spirit which was now rapidly growing up in 
the West. 

In the last year of Adams's administration a tariff 
bill was passed, which to the South seemed very unjust, 
as they had now come to see that their dream of develop- 
ing manufactures could not be realized. Five southern 
legislatures protested against the tariff law, and South 
Carolina threatened to disobey it, holding strongly to 
the idea of the right of a state to withdraw from the 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 493 

Union if the general government passed a law which the 
state thought contrary to the Constitution, which requires 
uniform duties throughout the United States. They 
looked for relief to the new President. This was Jack- 
son, who was elected for two terms (1 829-1 837). But 
the South did not find the hoped for relief. Although 
the new Congress did, by separate bills, reduce the tariff 
in the bill of 1828, still a protective tariff was retained 
which the South, and especially South Carolina, con- 
sidered very unjust, as it greatly aided the manufacturing 
North while it bore heavily on the agricultural South. 

Led by her great states' rights defender, John C. 
Calhoun, who was at the time a United States senator, 
South Carolina refused to obey the tariff law. It was 
declared of no effect in that state in 1832. This was 
nullification. It meant that those who believed in 
states' rights held that whether or not Congress had 
a right to pass any given law was to be decided by each 
individual state ; and if a state concluded that Con- 
gress was exercising power not given it in the Constitu- 
tion, it might nullify the law, — that is, refuse to obey 
it. But the President took prompt steps to prevent nul- 
lification and to enforce the law. Congress gave him 
the power to do this in what was called the Force Bill ; 
and, at the same time, through the efforts of Henry 
Clay, passed a compromise tariff bill. South Carolina 
greatly disliked the Force Bill, but, in response to the 
compromise tariff measure, it repealed its Ordinance 
of Nullification. With this compromise the doctrine of 
nullification slumbered till the Civil War (1 861-1865) 
brought it forward under the claim of the right of a 
state to secede from the Union. 



494 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Along with the great industrial growth of the country- 
came means for increasing the amount of money so that 
business of all kinds might be more easily carried on. 
We have already seen how the national banking sys- 
tem was established by Hamilton during Washington's 
first term. The charter for the bank, granted in 1791 
for twenty years, expired in 181 1. Congress failing to 
recharter the bank, there was no United .States bank- 
ing system carried on between .181 1 and 18 16. But in 
the latter year the Republican party, which originally 
opposed trie bank, rechartered it for another term of 
twenty years, with a capital stock of thirty-five million 
dollars. It had shown itself an excellent institution for 
herping forward the financial affairs of the country. 
But President Jackson thought it was a rich, undemo- 
cratic institution, which tended to oppress the common 
people and help the richer classes, and that it was 
badly managed. So in 1832, when a bill was passed by 
Congress and presented to the President, asking for a 
continuation of its charter, Jackson vetoed it. The de- 
posits of the United States, that is, the money which 
had come to the general government chiefly through 
the tariff, internal revenue and sale of public lands, 
which had been placed in the various branches of the 
United States Bank, were withdrawn by the Federal 
authorities, and the surplus funds of the government 
were loaned to the states in 1837. From 1836 to 1863 
there was no United States banking system. But in 
this period hundreds of banks, chartered by the states 
and having little capital, sprang up all over the country. 
These were often called wild-cat banks, since they sprang 
up like wild-cats, as it were, so quickly, often almost in 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 495 

the woods. They issued much paper money, which, 
because it had little or no gold or silver behind it, soon 
became practically worthless, caused business to become 
very unsettled, many to lose their property, and was a 
chief cause of the panic of 1837. 

In 1 82 1, after the great compromise which allowed 
slavery to cross the Mississippi and enter Missouri, 
people said that the slavery question in the United States 
was settled for all time, but about 1845 it began to come 
forward again. At the North many were determined 
never to rest until slavery was abolished from the Union. 
Foremost among these was William Lloyd Garrison, of 
Boston, who published a paper called the Liberator, in 
which he declared that slavery should be destroyed at 
any cost. He would have even broken up the Union 
to do it. Abolition societies were formed, and the senti- 
ment for freedom grew until many petitions were pre- 
sented to Congress, largely by John Q. Adams, on 
various phases of slavery, especially for the abolition of 
the slave trade in the District of Columbia, the capital 
of the general government. 

But we must not think all of United States history 
consisted in debates and struggles in Congress. During 
these times of strife over internal improvements, banks 
and slavery the United States was making great but 
quiet steps forward in industrial lines. Fulton in 1807 
had applied steam to running boats ; in 1827 it was first 
applied to turning wheels on land. Much money had 
been spent by the general government, from the close 
of the War of 18 12 to about 1830, in improving harbors, 
clearing rivers of snags, rocks and sand bars, and in 
building roads. With settlements in towns and cities 



496 SCHOOL HISTORY . 

rapidly springing up in the North, there came the need 
for many roads for the farmer to use in transporting his 
products to town and in taking back his supplies to 
the farm. Also the general government, as already said, 
built roads knowing that they would assist emigrants 
wishing to move westward. Many people, and especially 
those living in the two sections — North and South, — 
thought differently in regard to the justice of spending 
the public funds for internal improvements. Many who 
•helped pay the money, it was said, would never see or 
directly use them. However, improvements in rivers, 
harbors and roads went on rapidly, for the government 
felt it must bind the people together by " ducts of sym- 
pathy " if it would develop in them one strong national 
feeling. Roads were built extending in every direction 
— northwest, west and southwest. For example, a 
national road was built from Cumberland, Maryland, on 
the Potomac, almost directly west through Wheeling, 
West Virginia, on the Ohio River. Thence, as popula- 
tion grew, on through Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis 
and Terre Haute, Indiana, and finally on westward till 
it lost itself in the broad prairies of Illinois. It was 
never completed to the Mississippi, as the general gov- 
ernment at first intended, largely for the reason that the 
railroad came in to take its place. 

The travel on this road was very great. Besides the 
mail and passenger coaches, there was a never-ending 
stream of emigrant wagons with their household prop- 
erty and droves pushing into the west. In 1825 the 
greatest enterprise yet planned for water travel was 
completed. This was the Erie Canal, built by the State 
of New York between Lake Erie and the Hudson River. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 497 

By this means a water route was opened to the Atlantic 
from the heart of the interior, and New York City 
rapidly rose to be the metropolis of the country. Pork, 
grain and wool poured out from the West to the East. 
Manufactured goods of all kinds poured in from the 
East to the West. These roads not only carried prod- 
uce back and forth, but ideas as well, and the people of 
the East and West, with diverse manners and customs, 
were thus being rapidly woven into one nation, as a great 
loom weaves many threads into one immense fabric. 

Three years after the completion of the Erie Canal, 
(1828) the first American railroad was begun. It is 
interesting to know that the first step in this great liber- 
alizing work was taken by the last living signer of the 
Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, of Car- 
rollton. In 1830 fifteen miles of track were completed. 
At first the coaches were drawn by horses, but very 
soon these were replaced by the steam engine. Rail- 
road building now went on rapidly. By 1840 there had 
been twenty-three hundred miles built. Thus at last 
had been found a means of travel which would rapidly 
bind the different parts of the country together with 
common customs, ideas and laws. The steam road not 
only furnished rapid means of travel, but also a cheap 
way of transporting goods, books, letters and news- 
papers. But the influence of steam did not end here. 
The engine was soon applied to all kinds of stationary 
machinery, and manufacturing was made vastly easier 
and a thousand-fold more rapid. Just at this time also 
came the discovery of the use of anthracite coal, and 
with the use of coal better methods of producing and 
working iron. It was indeed a period of rapid growth 



498 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Soon gas was introduced for lighting, and the telegraph 
was invented and put in use in 1844. 

But the rapid progress which the United States was 
making was not confined merely to inventions and to 
material prosperity. As the people grew wealthy they 
obtained leisure, and leisure in turn gave opportunity 
for culture, refinement and the pleasures of life. Thus 
with growth in business came growth in religious 
thought, in education, in newspapers, in libraries and in 
literature. Before 1845, the works of Bryant, Irving, 
Cooper, Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, 
Whittier, Holmes and Bancroft had been diffused 
among the people by means of the free American press 
and were eagerly read by all classes. Schools spread 
throughout the West and were greatly aided by the 
fact that the general government gave one thirty-sixth 
part of the public lands for school purposes. High 
schools were established, and in 1839 was begun the 
establishment of normal schools, for the training of 
common-school teachers. 

It is necessary, however, to keep in mind that in the 
progress of the country the North came to stand mainly 
for literature, commerce and statesmanship, while the 
South stood for statesmanship and agriculture. The 
tendencies toward practical politics and agriculture by 
slaves on the part of the South, and the tendencies 
toward literature, free labor, diverse occupations and 
political speculation on the part of the North, char- 
acterized respectively the settlers from the North and 
the South as they migrated westward. Ocean steam- 
ships which began to cross the Atlantic successfully in 
1838 brought immigrants from Europe, who were quickly 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 499 

conveyed into the interior by the railroad and steamboat. 
The shops and farms westward were rapidly being filled 
with self-reliant settlers from New England, Scotchmen 
from New York, Germans from Pennsylvania ; and not 
only with these, but with the steady stream of English, 
Irish and Germans now beginning to pour in from the 
Old World. You can easily understand, of course, 
whether an Englishman or German or Irishman, coming 
to America with wife and children, and with a living to 
make by daily labor, would go to the South, where edu- 
cation was mainly private, there being no public school 
system as such, and where most of the labor was per- 
formed by slaves ; or to the North, where there were free 
schools, free labor, cheap land and hundreds of ave- 
nues for the common man to attain wealth and comfort, 
and a social organization without ranks and equally 
open to all. 

Meanwhile, the new party led by Jackson had taken 
the name of Democratic party, while what had been 
called the National Republican party was now (1832) 
called the Whig. Jackson had been succeeded in office 
by Martin Van Buren, a Democrat, who served one 
term (1 837-1 841). While he was President the country 
was in the very depths of a financial panic. 

The next campaign, 1841, was the beginning of the 
political rallies and processions which have grown now 
to be so common. W. H. Harrison, the Whig candi- 
date, was a plain western man, and in a way, a repre- 
sentative of the free jovial spirit of the backwoodsman, 
so the principal sight in all the processions of the cam- 
paign was a log cabin with a live raccoon on top and a 
barrel of cider by the door. Harrison was elected 



500 SCHOOL HISTORY 

President, and John Tyler, a Democrat of Virginia, was 
elected Vice President. Within one month the Presi- 
dent died and Vice President Tyler succeeded him. 
Tyler served one term (1841-1845), and then the Demo- 
crats elected James K. Polk, of Tennessee. 

Since the Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, the American 
people had not enlarged the boundaries of their terri- 
tory except by the acquisition of Florida from Spain in 
1 8 19. But civilization, as we have seen, had been 
rapidly pouring back from the Appalachians to the 
foot of the Rockies, and the Westerner by his expan- 
sion was heeding the words of Lowell : — 

" Be broad-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines, 
By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs." 

Now one " design " which became most prominent in 
1845 was, at least by the North, considered anything 
but "upright." This was the plan to acquire Texas 
for the purpose of extending slavery therein. If you 
will look at your maps, you will see that the South by 
this time had carved all its territory into states (Arkan- 
sas had been made out of its last remaining land in 
1836); so the South felt that it must have Texas in 
order to extend its slave institutions and to keep up the 
balance of power in the Senate. Texas had been a part 
of Mexico since 182 1, when Mexico became independent 
of Spain ; but it was now being overrun and settled 
largely by emigrants from the southern states. In 
1836 Texas withdrew from Mexico and declared herself 
an independent republic. Mexico failed to reconquer 
Texas, and her independence was recognized by the 
United States. A state constitution was adopted, allow- 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 501 

ing slavery, and the state then asked for admission to 
the Union. The South greatly desired to have it ad- 
mitted, but the North was as strongly opposed. Mexico 
claimed that Texas was not an independent republic 
and had no right to join the United States. She also 
declared that if the United States admitted Texas into 
the Union, that act would be a just cause for war between 
the two countries. Notwithstanding this, Congress ad- 
mitted Texas in 1845, with a constitution providing for 
slavery. While the Texas question was gradually grow- 
ing, three more states had joined the Union, — Arkansas, 
as already said, in 1836, Michigan in 1837 an d Florida 
in 1845. Florida, as we have already said, at first be- 
longed to Spain, from whom the United States bought 
it in 1 8 19 for five million dollars. 

No sooner had Texas been admitted to the Union, 
than a further dispute arose with Mexico over the 
southern boundary of Texas. The United States held 
that the boundary between Texas and Mexico was the 
Rio Grande River, while Mexico claimed that Texas 
extended only to the Nueces. The United States army 
occupied the territory between these two rivers and was 
attacked by the Mexicans. This led to a declaration 
of war against Mexico by the United States in 1846. 
The war lasted two years, and it is generally thought 
to have been a very unjust war on the part of the United 
States against a weaker nation. Although the Mexi- 
cans put larger armies into the field than did the United 
States, they were defeated in every battle, until Mexico 
was invaded by the United States army and its capital 
taken. 

While this was going on, United States troops seized 



502 SCHOOL HISTORY 

California and New Mexico. When a treaty of peace 
between the two nations was signed, in 1848, Mexico 
gave up not only the territory between the Nueces and 
the Rio Grande, which was the immediate cause of the 
war, but, in addition to this, all Mexican territory north 
of the Gila River, and extending from the Rocky Moun- 
tains to the Pacific Ocean. This included New Mexico, 
California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and parts of Colo- 
rado and Wyoming. But the Anglo-Saxon hunger for 
territory was not yet satisfied. The Americans imme- 
diately began to make plans to secure that part of 
America west of the Rocky Mountains and north 
of the forty-second parallel, called the Oregon terri- 
tory. This territory was claimed by both England and 
the" United States, and had been partly settled by both 
countries. The United States claimed that the north- 
ern boundary was 54 40', but England refused to grant 
this claim. For a time it looked as if there would be 
war between the two countries, but in the end it was 
settled by a treaty in which the northern boundary of 
the United States was fixed at the forty-ninth parallel. 
Following these years of territorial growth, the United 
States continued to grow in improvements and inven- 
tions. By the use of the telegraph it became possible 
to operate large railway systems. Farming was helped 
greatly by the introduction of improved farm machinery: 
for example, the McCormick reaper, patented in 1834, 
soon did away with the slow method of reaping wheat 
with the sickle and cradle, and the steam engine which 
displaced horse power as a means of threshing grain 
did away with the flail and the winnowing of wheat by 
hand. Thus, while the East was manufacturing cotton 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 503 

and woolen goods, the West was manufacturing farms 
and sending its raw material rapidly eastward by means 
of steamboat, canal and railroad. 

In 1848 gold was discovered in California. The 
telegraph and newspaper spread the news of the vast 
wealth of the Pacific coast like magic over the world, 
and almost immediately from all parts of the United 
States, from Europe and South America, came gold 
hunters on a mad rush through the western mountains, 
across the isthmus of Panama, and around Cape Horn, 
to California. In the year 1849 almost eighty thousand 
immigrants rushed into California to dig gold. In that 
year the new settlers drew up a constitution, excluding 
slavery, and asked to be admitted to the Union. There 
were few slave men in California, for the owners could 
not take slaves there and use them to great advantage 
in mining. Soon the same old question of slavery and 
freedom arose ; that is, should slavery be allowed to 
enter this new public territory or not ? The North was 
making great efforts in the press and in Congress to 
admit it free, although most of it lay south of the paral- 
lel of 36 30', the Missouri Compromise line, as you 
will remember, on the east side of the Rockies, which 
divided the free and slave states. 

This was the leading question before the people in the 
campaign of 1849. It resulted in the election of Tay- 
lor, the Whig candidate, who had become famous as a 
general in the Mexican War. No sooner had the new 
administration begun, in 1850, than the slavery question 
was pushed rapidly to the front. From all this we can 
see how far the question was from being settled " for- 
ever," as the politicians had said it was when Missouri 



504 SCHOOL HISTORY 

was admitted in 1821. The contest over the admission 
of the new western land was bitter, but it was ended 
for a short time in 1850 by a compromise proposed by 
Henry Clay, who because of his many compromise 
bills in Congress was called the "peace-maker." The 
bill proposed to settle at one and the same time all 
of the disputes that had grown out of the slavery con- 
test. From its effort to make provision for settling all 
the great questions then dividing the South from the 
North it was called the Omnibus Bill. Its chief pro- 
visions were: (1) California was admitted as a free 
state. (2) Slave trading was stopped in the District 
of Columbia. (3) Utah and New Mexico were organ- 
ized as territories without any mention of slavery, leav- 
ing that question to be determined by the settlers who 
should go therein. (4) The United States paid Texas a 
large sum of money for a claim held by Texas upon a 
portion of what is now New Mexico. (5) A Fugitive 
Slave Law, made very favorable for catching runaway 
slaves, was passed by Congress. It is thought, if Presi- 
dent Taylor had lived the bill would not have been 
passed, but in 1850 he died, and Vice President Fillmore 
became President and signed it. 

Those who voted for the Compromise Bill of 1850 
thought, or at any rate desired to think, that they were 
quietly settling the entire slavery dispute forever. In- 
stead of this they were throwing fuel into the flame. The 
advantages gained from the compromise by the South, 
and especially the provision concerning catching and 
returning fugitive slaves who had escaped from them, 
only made many people of the North more determined 
to resist the further growth of slavery, and if possible 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 505 

utterly to destroy it. This was shown when slave owners 
from the South, acting under the Fugitive Slave Law, 
tried to arrest escaped negroes in the northern states and 
take them back South. Sympathy for the negroes in the 
northern states had grown so strong that many persons 
sheltered runaway slaves and helped them to escape. 
Routes were established by which fugitives were taken 
forward, often during the night-time, from station to 
station, into Canada. These routes were called under- 
ground railroads, because by them it was possible to 
assist the negro northward so quickly and secretly. Of 
course this made the South very angry with the North, 
and much the same feeling was held by the North 
toward the South. The North and South, as we have 
already seen, had never been genuinely and closely 
united. In schools, education, systems of labor, gov- 
ernment and social opportunities it is easy to see that 
the two sections were drifting farther and farther apart. 
In 1854 a bill was presented to Congress for the 
organization of Nebraska, which was to include all the 
territory of the Louisiana Purchase north of the line of 
the Missouri Compromise (36 30') and west of the states 
of Iowa and Missouri. Finally the bill was changed, 
and provided that the territory should be divided into 
two territories, (1) Kansas just west of Missouri and 
(2) Nebraska west of Iowa. The bill also declared 
that the slavery provision of the Missouri Compromise 
had been done away with by the provision of 1850 
concerning Utah and New Mexico, which, as you re- 
member, left it to the settlers of those two territories to 
decide whether they would have freedom or slavery 
when they asked for admission as states into the Union. 



506 SCHOOL HISTORY 

Since this privilege had been granted to those two terri- 
tories, the South, led by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, 
argued that the same privilege ought to be granted 
to all territories formed by the general government. 
This argument prevailed in Congress, and the Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill passed (1854), granting the right to the 
people who settled in those territories to decide for them- 
selves whether they would or would not have slaves 
brought in and settled among them. The passing of this 
bill was thought to be another great victory for the South. 
It placed power in the hands of the state government 
which had heretofore been exercised by the general 
government, namely, that of determining whether any 
given territory entering the Union should have slavery 
in it or not. When the bill passed, two streams of 
settlers — a northern and a southern — immediately set 
out from the eastern states toward Kansas. Slave 
owners, taking with them slaves and many rude, shiftless 
people from the South, were first on the ground. The 
North likewise was determined to get possession of 
the state. Emigration societies were formed in eastern 
cities, by means of which money was raised and northern 
settlers hurried into the territory. Very soon trouble 
arose between the different peoples settling there, and 
for some time Kansas was a scene of bloody strug- 
gle between the northern and southern settlers. The 
war between slavery and freedom had really begun. 
This was during the administration of Franklin Pierce, 
a Democrat, who succeeded Fillmore in 1853. The 
slavery party proved at first strongest in Kansas, but 
the constitution formed by this party was refused by 
Congress, when Kansas asked for admission, because 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 507 

it had been voted upon unlawfully by the border 
ruffians of Missouri and other southern states, who 
crossed over into the territory temporarily for the pur- 
pose of carrying the election for slavery. The result 
was that Kansas remained a territory until 1861, and 
then entered the Union as a free state after the south- 
ern members had withdrawn from Congress. This was 
the last hope of the South for securing slave territory in 
the West. The forces of freedom were growing stronger 
every day, and the South saw that finally she would 
certainly be overwhelmed by them. What she finally 
concluded to do to save her institution of slavery, we 
shall presently see. 

In 1857 James Buchanan was elected President by 
the Democratic party. This year was also marked by 
an important decision of the Supreme Court. A negro, 
named Dred Scott, who was the slave of a surgeon in 
the regular army, living in the state of Missouri, had 
been taken by his owner into Illinois, a free state, then 
to the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase (in what 
is now Minnesota), where slavery was " forever pro- 
hibited " by the Missouri Compromise, and finally was 
taken back to Missouri, a slave state. Being whipped 
by his master, Scott sued for his freedom, claiming that 
having lived in a free state and a free territory, he had 
become a free man. The Supreme Court of the United 
States decided against him, — that is, it decided that taking 
a slave into a free state did not make him any less a slave. 
The effect of this decision on the North was very great. 
The people saw that it gave the slave owners right to over- 
run their free territory with slaves. It practically threw 
the North open, temporarily at least, to the slave holders 



508 SCHOOL HISTORY 

of the South, and it made the North only the more deter- 
mined to destroy slavery. Abolition literature was printed 
in the northern states and sent broadcast over the country, 
especially in the South, and greater efforts were made 
to aid escaping slaves. A new man now entered the 
slavery contest. This was Abraham Lincoln, — a man 
like Socrates, Luther and Franklin, of plain, simple 
and natural manner, who had not been educated in 
schools and universities, but had " mixed with action " 
in the great Practical University of Life, and, knowing 
the hopes and struggles of the common people, came 
to love and believe in them. He saw that the set- 
tlement of the slavery problem could not be put off 
much longer. Slave uprisings were becoming more 
and more common in the South. In the North negro 
schools were sometimes established. In 1859 John 
Brown tried to arouse the slaves in Virginia to rebel 
by seizing the United States Arsenal at Harper's 
Ferry, Virginia, and arming the slaves, but this brave 
man was soon captured and hanged for treason. But 
still the spirit of liberty for which he stood went 
"marching on," for there was growing to be a vast 
number in the North who saw, as Lincoln said, that our 
nation could not long remain "half slave and half free." 
" A house divided against itself," he said, " cannot stand." 
Lincoln became the leader of the northern sentiment, 
and the presidential candidate, in i860, of the Repub- 
lican party, to which the Whig party had now changed 
its name. Although the platform of i860, upon which 
he was elected, expressly declared that the Republican 
Party merely intended to prevent slavery from extend- 
ing any farther into public territory than it had already 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 509 

done, Lincoln believed and said in his speeches not long 
before this time that the state of affairs then existing 
could not permanently last ; that slavery must extend 
to all the states or be entirely destroyed. " I believe," 
he said in a great speech in 1858, "that this govern- 
ment cannot endure half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the 
house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing or all the other." 
When Lincoln became President, in 1861, he said: "I 
have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with 
the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. 
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no 
inclination to do so." Nevertheless, the South thought 
that his election meant their ruin, for that was, they 
thought, what the loss of their slaves meant. South 
Carolina, always quickest to defend what she regarded 
as her rights, took the lead of the southern states and 
determined to withdraw from the Union. 

Before going farther let us take a brief view of the 
condition of the country in general, both North and 
South. Between 1850 and 1861 five new states had been 
admitted — Iowa in 1846, Wisconsin in 1848, Minne- 
sota in 1858, Oregon in 1859, Kansas 1861, all free. 
The population of the country had now grown to be 
over thirty-one millions. Emigration, mostly belong- 
ing to the middle class, had pushed rapidly forward 
to the middle and western states ; but practically none 
had gone to the South. The South was rich in soil, 
with some stores of coal and iron and vast fields of cane, 
cotton and tobacco, but fully one-third of the popu- 
lation were slaves. Slavery had destroyed the middle 



510 SCHOOL HISTORY 

class and had made a " poor white class " as far below 
"the planter" as the serf of the Middle Ages was 
below his lord. The North had many large cities 
teeming with wealth, bound together by railroads and 
telegraph lines. Steam had been put to turning the 
wheels of the printing press, and with books, maga- 
zines and newspapers, America was in the midst of 
the " golden age " of her literature. Prescott and 
Motley wrote histories which attracted the whole world ; 
Bryant, amid his labors as journalist, struck off his un- 
dying poems; Longfellow told the tale of love which re- 
called our ancestral connection with Plymouth and the 
Mayflower. Whittier sang the songs of freedom ; Lowell, 
Holmes and Curtis, in the purest of English, addressed 
millions of readers through Harper 's, Putnam's and TJie 
Atlantic, and Emerson spoke such words of wisdom and 
inspiration that they cannot be classed as belonging to 
any particular age. It was a day when opportunities 
were expanding ; when the common man was beginning 
to count in schemes of government, industry and educa- 
tion. In fact, the North was rapidly becoming a gov- 
ernment " of the people, by the people, and for the 
people " ; while the South, although recognizing the 
rights of the " poor whites," and often treating the slaves 
humanely, was essentially and with great ability a gov- 
ernment of the slaveholders, by the slaveholders, and 
for the slaveholders. 

On the twentieth day of December, i860, South 
Carolina, in convention called for that purpose, declared : 
(1) That she had a right to abolish a government seek- 
ing to rule her, which, in her opinion, had become de- 
structive of the ends for which it was set up ; (2) that 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 511 

the non-slaveholding states had broken the Constitution 
by passing laws protecting slaves who had run away from 
their masters and escaped to the North, that, therefore, 
South Carolina was released from her obligations to 
abide by the Constitution ; and (3) that as a sovereign 
state she had a right to govern herself, and for the rea- 
sons already stated, she would withdraw from the Union. 
Before March, 1861, six other states had joined South 
Carolina. Those states were Mississippi, Florida, Ala- 
bama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Later Virginia, 
North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas joined them, 
making in all eleven. They formed a Confederacy, 
known as the Confederate States of America. They 
selected Richmond, Virginia, as the Confederate capi- 
tal, and chose Jefferson Davis President and Alexander 
H. Stephens Vice President. They seized all Federal 
government property within their limits and prepared 
to defend themselves against any move the North might 
make. They thought they had a right to withdraw 
from the Union, and felt sure of success in any contest 
with the North. They had lost control of the central 
government in Congress, and seceded because : (1) they 
saw that the North would not consent to further slavery 
extension ; (2) because the northern states were assist- 
ing their slaves to escape (which was a violation of 
Art. 4, § 2, cl. 3, of the Constitution); and (3) because 
they thought that President Lincoln intended to de- 
stroy slavery wherever it existed in the United States. 
Although he did not intend to do this, and, as we have 
seen, expressly declared that he did not, he had sworn 
to protect the Union and preserve it. This he intended 
to do, at whatever cost. " I shall take care," he said in 



512 SCHOOL HISTORY 

his first inaugural address, . . . "that the laws of the 
Union be faithfully executed in all the states." 

Lincoln was a western man, who was reared when 
a child in a log-cabin in Kentucky. At seven years 
of age he moved with his parents from Kentucky to 
Indiana, and at the age of twenty-one from Indiana 
to the wilderness of Illinois. He rose by his own 
efforts to be as great a statesman as Washington and 
one of the greatest in the history of the world. Being 
a plain man himself, he had profound confidence in 
the plain people. He said of them, " You can fool 
all the people some of the time, some of the people 
all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all 
the time." In dealing with the slavery question, he 
followed a cautious but straightforward policy, moving 
no faster than he could carry the people with him. 
A like straightforward and just policy was followed also 
by the President in dealing with the seceded states. 
He at once declared that the southern states were in 
rebellion against the Union and called for volunteers 
to compel them to remain peaceably in the Union. 
Both sides began all preparations for the great struggle. 
We can see at a moment's thought which side was 
the stronger and better prepared for war. It requires 
money, men, arms, and a great cause to fight for, to 
make a great war. The North had more men, more 
money and more arms, more free schools, free govern- 
ments and free men than the South, and until the 
Emancipation Proclamation, January, 1863, had the 
great principle of the Union ("half slave and half 
free") to fight for. After the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion, till April, 1865, a vastly greater principle to fight 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 513 

for, namely, a Union based upon the immortal principle 
of the Declaration of Independence, that u All men are 
created equal," and should have the inalienable right 
to pursue life, liberty and happiness unhindered. The 
South too felt that it was fighting for a great cause 
when it fought to maintain the principle that each state, 
being its own judge, should have the right wholly to 
rule itself in case the general government treated it 
unjustly, and in defense of its property right in slaves 
as guaranteed by the Constitution. The principle of 
local self-government is a precious one to all Anglo- 
Saxon Americans. It was born two thousand years ago 
with the Teutonic race in the German forests, and it 
has grown ever stronger as that race has increased in 
strength, and conquered the fairest parts of the earth. 
That it did not prevail in the war from 1861 to 1865 
to the extent of dismembering the Union, all sections 
of our harmonious Republic now equally rejoice. What 
the South lacked in arms, money and men it made up 
for in a struggle so brave that its courage was only 
equaled by that of the North, and its self-sacrifice was 
in every way equal to its courage. Moreover, no other 
war in all history, perhaps, involving such great per- 
sonal sacrifice, can show those who were defeated as 
having accepted the results of the conflict in as fine a 
spirit or with as true a patriotism as those have who 
fought on the Confederate side in the late struggle 
between the northern and southern states. 

This struggle, called the War of the Rebellion, or the 
Civil War, lasted four years. We cannot follow it in 
detail. At first the southern arms were mainly suc- 
cessful, but the swelling tide of liberty in the North soon 



514 SCHOOL HISTORY 

began to overcome them. They had neither the men 
nor means to keep up the struggle. Their downfall 
was hastened when, on January I, 1863, having felt 
that the people at home and the nations abroad were 
ready for it, and that it was a necessary means of 
saving the Union, Lincoln issued the Emancipation 
Proclamation, proclaiming all the slaves in the states 
then in rebellion free. Without their slaves to culti- 
vate their land and thus furnish means with which to 
carry on the war, the South could not hold out long. 
Although urged by some to proclaim the slaves free 
at the beginning of the war, Lincoln declared he had 
no intention of doing so unless the life of the Union 
required it. He finally made the proclamation as a 
means of weakening the South, ending the war and 
saving the Union. His power to do this was dis- 
puted, but in 1865 Congress proposed an Amendment 
to the Constitution, which was ratified by the states, 
abolishing slavery entirely from the United States. 1 
As already said, the southern states were overcome 
by larger armies, and finally, when the South was 
bankrupt and in ruins, when they had suffered as prob- 
ably no other people in modern times have suffered, 
the South gave up the struggle, and General Lee sur- 
rendered his army to General Grant at Appomattox 
Courthouse, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. The first 
act of Grant in dealing with Lee's surrendered and 
starving army was calculated to heal the great breach 
between the two great sections. He issued food to 
the starving men and sent them back home with their 
horses, saying, they would need them for the spring 

1 Amendments, Art. XIII. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 515 

plowing. Lincoln and Grant, supported by the free 
common men of the nation, had thus saved the Union 
which it cost Washington and the Revolutionary patri- 
ots so much sacrifice to create. But in addition to the 
cost of money and men it cost the life of the great 
Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, he was shot, while attend- 
ing the theater in Washington, by John Wilkes Booth, 
a southern sympathizer. Immediately the rejoicing in 
the North over peace and victory was turned into uni- 
versal grief. The death of the great man who had 
guided the Nation through the storm was felt as an 
irreparable loss by the South as well as the North, and 
it moved the sympathy of the entire world. Lincoln 
was succeeded in office by Andrew Johnson, the Vice 
President, on whom fell the great task of restoring the 
South from the effects of secession and war and of 
cementing the states into one harmonious Union. 

What were the results of the war ? Since the forma- 
tion of the Union many had believed in the right of 
nullification and ultimately of the right of secession on 
the part of a state. This question was now settled for- 
ever. The war proved (1) that ours is a Union in which 
there can be no secession. No state can withdraw from 
the Union, nor can the Union interfere with the rights 
of the states. Then (2) slavery was destroyed forever. 
To sum it up briefly, it may be said that the war proved 
that the United States is an indestructible, Federal 
Union made up of indestructible states, wherein slavery 
shall not exist but where every one shall be free to make 
the most and best possible of himself. The war thus 
saved for posterity the example of a nation based upon 
the great principles worked out by the greatest peoples 



516 SCHOOL HISTORY 

of the past. It saved the Roman principle of a strong 
central government ; it united with this the Teutonic 
principle of a strong local government ; it may be truly 
said to have saved the Greek principles of art and 
philosophy by making it possible for everybody to enter 
freely into school and university and gain that culture 
upon which these are based. In short, the war saved a 
nation, based upon the oldest, broadest and most abid- 
ing principle of humanity, — human freedom. It made 
America, as Emerson said, another word for opportunity. 
Much trouble was had in rebuilding the Union, but 
slowly the southern states came back to their former 
standing. Thirty-five years have passed away since 
the close of the Civil War. The negro, by constitutional 
amendments, has been made a citizen and been given 
the right to vote and all rights of American citizenship ; 
but the ignorance, superstition and crime still found in 
that race imposes on America a great duty to assist the 
negro in the future to lift himself up to the blessings of 
civilization. Time has taken away the feeling of bitter- 
ness between the North and South, and the country now 
is united as never before. Since the negro has been 
freed, the South itself has awakened to a new life. It 
has grown greatly in wealth and learning, and finds free 
labor more profitable than formerly it found slave. The 
country is still directed politically by two main political 
parties, — the Democratic, holding essentially to the prin- 
ciple of local government, upon which it was founded 
by Jefferson ; and the Republican, holding to the prin- 
ciple of strong national government, the principle upon 
which it was founded by Hamilton, Washington, Adams 
and Jay. Many other important questions still face the 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 517 

people of the United States and call for the greatest 
wisdom in their settlement. The means of securing 
honest, capable officers for carrying on the government, 
— national, state, municipal, — the best means of regu- 
lating trusts, the best means of securing to the daily 
laborer a just reward for his labor, demand as great 
statesmanship for settlement as did the bank, tariff, in- 
ternal improvements, and slavery questions, which were 
the great political issues during the first three-quarters 
of our national life. 

Moreover, in 1898 America was for a time at war 
with Spain for the freedom of Cuba. In this war the 
United States was again successful, and among its 
many effects it brought the North and South closer 
together in friendship, perhaps, than they had ever 
been since the formation of the Union. In this war the 
Philippine Islands, Cuba and Porto Rico were taken 
from Spain, and a great question of the present hour is 
how the United States can best discharge its duties 
toward these foreign possessions. In dealing thus far 
with these outlying territories, our country has acted 
with promptness and energy ; for, after spending mil- 
lions of dollars in freeing Cuba, establishing an ad- 
mirable school system therein, providing for popular 
elections, establishing hospitals and charitable institu- 
tions, cleaning and reorganizing the prisons, introducing 
sanitation, thus making one of the most unhealthy coun- 
tries of the world one of comparative healthfulness, the 
United States, on May 27, 1902, of its own accord (one 
of the most honorable acts in the history of the world) 
lowered its own flag, raised the Cuban emblem of national 
independence in its place and bade God-speed to the new 



$18 SCHOOL HISTORY 

republic which it had liberated, nourished and launched 
into independent life. Thus, you see, while we do not 
have the same struggles to make, in settlement of 
exactly the same questions that our forefathers had, we 
have as great and as important ones. And the main 
purpose of all the study we have given to the develop- 
ment of history throughout all the ages has been to see 
how the great principles of human liberty have been 
fought for, won and developed, and how they have 
sometimes been lost through carelessness, ignorance 
and selfishness. All along the track of time, for thou- 
sands of years, people have been sacrificing, and giving 
the things most precious to them, — even to their lives, 
— that men and women and children might be free to 
make the very most and best of their lives of which 
they are capable. In order to obtain the value that 
historical study should give, one must catch the spirit 
of justice, kindness and helpfulness, and highly resolve 
to work with might in some avenue which will better 
mankind. He who truly studies Greece or the Re- 
nascence will seek to bring beauty to schoolroom and 
home by putting picture and library and beauty and 
culture within them. He who truly studies the best 
that Rome achieved in her thousand years of history 
will gradually feel the great virtues of perseverance, 
obedience to authority and patriotism which Rome 
taught, etching their way into his character. He who 
follows the growth of religion through its hundreds of 
generations, and Christianity through its nineteen cen- 
turies of development and sees the growth of the uni- 
versal Church from age to age, ever catching new 
truth and broader views, will come to see the good 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 519 

which has been, and is being accomplished by every 
religion, creed and profession. Out of such views toler- 
ation will arise, narrowness and bigotry will disappear, 
and the hand of sympathy and helpfulness will be 
reached forth not alone to kindred and neighbors and 
countrymen and fellow-Christians but to fellow-men 

"Where'er a human spirit strives 
After a life more true and fair." 

He who truly studies the history of America will come 
to see and feel that the great principles of freedom 
which we enjoy have their roots lying deep in the past, 
— that all great nations and great men have given their 
noblest efforts and their lives to establish and advance 
these principles ; that the truest patriotism and service 
to country, therefore, does not consist in a narrow and 
slavish subservience to party, creed, or country, but in an 
earnest and intelligent effort to see the truth which ex- 
ists in every party, creed and nation, and in a life de- 
voted to advancing the immortal principles of human 
liberty upon which our government is based and which 
all ages and all nations have contributed in some degree 
to bequeath to us. It is by some such conception of 
patriotism and true love of country as this that the 
student of history becomes broad, liberal, many-sided, — 
a true interpreter of the past, a safe guide for the 
present and a guarantee to the future " that govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people, 
shall not perish from the earth." 



520 SCHOOL HISTORY 



References 

Walker: Making of the Nation; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

Burgess: The Middle Period ; Scribner's Sons, N.Y. 

Rhodes : History of the United States from the Compromise of 

1850 (4 vols.) ; Harper & Bros., N.Y. 
Hart : Formation of the Union ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 
Wilson : Division and Reunion ; Longmans, Green & Co., N.Y. 
Lalor: Cyclopedia of Political Science; Merrill & Co., N.Y. 

(a) Federalists. (&) Anti-Federalists. (c) Alien and Sedi- 
tion Laws. (d) Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. 
(e) Embargo. (/) Wars of United States, (g) Hartford 
Convention. (//) Internal Improvements. (z) Slavery. 
(j) Secession, (k) Reconstruction. 
Wilkinson: Story of the Cotton Plant; Appleton & Co., N.Y. 
McCarty : History of the United States; Stone & Co., N.Y. 
Richardson: History of American Literature (2 vols.); Putnam's 

Sons, N.Y. 
McMaster : History of United States ; American Book Co., Cin- 
cinnati. 
Hosmer : A Short History of the Mississippi Valley ; Houghton, 

Mifflin & Co., N.Y. 
Roosevelt : The Winning of the West (4 vols.) ; Putnam's Sons, 

'N.Y. 
Woolsey : First Century of the Republic; Harper & Bros., N.Y. 
McLaughlin: History of the American Nation; Appleton & Co., 

N.Y. 
Montgomery : Students' History of the United States ; Ginn & Co., 

Boston. 
Channing : Students' History of the United States ; The Macmillan 

Co., N.Y. 
Statesman Series : Especially Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, 

John Quincy Adams, Calhoun, Webster, Clay, Jackson, Lincoln ; 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., N.Y. 
Cooke: Life of R. E. Lee; Appleton & Co., N.Y. 
American Men of Letters Series : Especially Irving, Bryant, Tho- 

reau, Emerson, Franklin, Curtis. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NATION 521 

Underwood: Biography of Longfellow; Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
N.Y. 

Old South Leaflets: Ordinance of 1787, Articles of Confederation, 
Constitution of United States, Monroe Doctrine, Lincoln's In- 
augurals ; Directors of Old South Work, Boston, Mass. 

Preston : Documents Illustrative of American History ; Putnam's 
Sons, N.Y. 

Hart: Source Book of American History; Macmillan Co., N.Y. 



INDEX 



Aaron's Rod, 49. 

Abibaal, death of, 64 ; father of 

Hiram, 55. 
Abolitionists, work of, 495. 
Abraham, and worship of idols, 

34 ; as a boy, 33. 
A-cad'e-my of Athens, 101. 
A-chilles, ideal of Alexander, 

i3 : > 1 3 2 - 

A-crop'o-lis, 113; description of, 
114; goddess of Athena on, 
105 ; in Athens, 102. 

Adams, John, President, 476, 477. 

Adams, J. Q., President of United 
States, 492 ; presents petitions 
on slavery to Congress, 495. 

Ae-ge'an Sea, 103 ; crossing of, by 
Xerxes, 108. 

Ae-miri-us Pau'lus, command of, 
in East, 205 ; leader in Punic 
War, 193 ; triumph of, 206. 

Aes'chy-lus, 138. 

Ara-ric, 54. 

Alexander the Great, 125 ; attack 
of, against Tyre, 135 ; at 
Gordium, 133; burial of, 140; 
change in character of, 140; 
chief services of, to history, 
144; cities founded by, 137, 
138; death of, 140; defeats 
Greeks, 131 ; early inclination 



of, toward war, 132; early life 
of, 129; gymnastic sports in 
army of, 132; in Egypt, 136; 
king of Persia, 137; march of, 
into Persia, 131 ; marriage of, 
138; personal habits of, 139; 
relation of, to science, 138; 
studies of, 130; treasure of, 
found in East, 137. 

Alexandria, founding of, 136; 
growth of, 141 ; library of, 142; 
library in, 143 ; supersedes 
Tyre, 141 ; trade of, 114. 

Alien and Sedition Laws, 477, 478. 

Alps, crossing of, by Hannibal, 
187; position of, 239; relation 
of, to Italy, 148. 

Amber, 58. 

America, causes leading to set- 
tlement of, 423 ; chief nations 
colonizing in, 425; government 
of, 464 ; preparatory steps to 
the discovery of, 423, 424. 

Amphitheater, games in, 219. 

Ancient bricks, used in writing, 
how made, 72. 

Anti-Federalists, 471, 477. 

Apennines, 149, 150, 239. 

A-pol'lo, god of, consulted by 
Athenians, 109. 

Aqueducts in Italy, 152. 



5 2 3 



524 



SCHOOL HISTORY 



Ar-be'la, battle of, 136. 

Architecture in Carthage, 172. 

Ar'chons at Athens, 100, 102. 

Ares, sacrifices to, 96. 

Ar-is-ti'des banished from Athens, 
105. 

Ar'is-tot-le, rank of, as philosopher, 
138 ; teacher of Alexander, 138. 

Ark, description of, 49. 

Armor, offensive and defensive, 
188-191. 

Army, Hannibal's, 184, 185 ; 
Roman, description of, 188 ; 
standing, influence of, 346, 347. 

Art, Grecian, 84, 85. 

" Arya, " description of, 8 ; life of, 
15, 16; sons of, 5. 

Aryans, branches of, 3; early 
religion of, 7 ; habits of, in eat- 
i n g> 9 '■> primitive civilization 
among, 4 ; probable early home 
of, 3 ; superstition of, 6 ; 
women's work among, n. 

Asia Minor, condition of, 205 ; 
Greek cities in, 102. 

As-tar'te, 64. 

Athena, on Acropolis Hill, 114; 
statue of, 115. 

Athenians, " Master, remember 
the," 103. 

Athens, burning of, no; descrip- 
tion of, 102 ; destruction of, by 
Sparta, 1 24 ; meets Persians, 
103 ; wealth of, 113. 

Atum, god of, 28. 

Augustus Caesar, rule of, 230, 231. 

Baal, 181. 

Balista, description of, 306. 



Baltic Sea visited by Phoenicians, 

58. 
Baths, courses in, 217 ; Roman, 

description of, 216. 
Battering-ram, description of, 135; 

Roman, 198. 
"Bema Stone," 119. 
Bible, sources of, 45; translated 

into Greek, 142 ; translated into 

German, 367. 
Bi-reme, description of, 57. 
Boats, Phoenician, 56. 
Boc-cac'cio, work of, 332, 333. 
Bori-var, 403. 
Books, ancient, 66, J^ : 4 2 '■> ma -k- 

ing of, in monasteries, 269 ; 

rapidity of making, 342 ; spread 

of, 343- 

Bricks, writing upon, 72. 

Britons, 58. 

Brown, John, 508. 

Bu-ceph'a-lus, 130. 

Bulgarians, relation of, to Cru- 
sades, 299. 

Bull, papal, burning of, 360, 361. 

Burgesses, house of, 440. 

Burgundians, 255. 

Byr'sa, 172; captured by Rome, 
200, 201. 

Cabinet, first, in United States, 
471. 

Caesar, Julius, death of, 230; 
early life of, 227, 228 ; great- 
ness of, 228; in Gaul, 228; 
master of Rome, 229 ; work of, 
229, 230. 

Calhoun, work of, 493. 

California, admission of, to United 



INDEX 



525 



States, 503 ; early settlement of, 
404, 405. 
Calvin, influence of, over English 
reformers, 373 ; work of, 368, 

3 6 9- 
Camel, habits of, 60. 
Ca'naan conquered by Hebrews, 

35- 

Cannae, battle of, 193. 

Caravan of Phoenician traders, 
59, 60. 

Carthage, art of, 173; commerce 
of, 174; conquest of, 175; 
declaration of war against Rome, 
183; destruction of, 200 ; extent 
of, at First Punic War, 176; 
harbor of, 173 ; position of, 
172 ; ships of, 173 ; siege of, 
198-201 ; slavery of, 175, 176; 
walls of, 173. 

Castle, daily life in, 282-284; de- 
fense of, in Middle Ages, 289; 
description of, 279-281 ; origin 
of, 279; taking of, 289. 

Catapult, Roman, 189; string for, 
199; use of, 135, 289. 

Chapter House, 263. 

Charlemagne, influence of, 276. 

Chiton, 87, 89. 

Chivalry, value of, 2S6 ; spirit of, 
201. 

Christianity, cause of early growth 
of, 233 ; mission of, 235. 

Christians, Rome's dislike of, 232. 

Cicero, interest in, during Middle 
Ages, 336. 

Cin-cin-na'tus, 168. 

Circus, Roman, description of, 
217. 



Circus Maximus, description of, 

218. 
City-states in Greece, 81, 100. 
Civil War, principles involved in, 

512 ; results of, 514, 515. 
Civilization, gain to, by Rome's 

conquest of Carthage, 200, 201. 
Classical Literature, 330. 
Clay, Henry, work of, 492, 503. 
Cleis'the-nes, 102. 
Clitus, death of, 139; saves life of 

Alexander, 132. 
Cloister garth, 262, 264. 
Colet, work of, 351. 
Colonial governments, types of, 

447 , 448. 
Colonies, Carthaginian, treatment 

of, 176, 177. 
Col-os-se'um, description of, 219. 
Columbus, 424; plan of, 314; 

work of, 382, 383. 
Column, Egyptian, description of, 

25 ; use of in Egypt, 26. 
Commerce of early Greeks, 97. 
Common man, condition of, under 

feudalism, 284; rise of, 290.. 
Confederation, Articles of, 457. 
Connecticut, early settlement of, 

429. 
Constantine, adoption of Chris- 
tianity by, 233. 
Constantinople, attack of, by 

Turks, 296 ; capture of, 382 ; 

effects of fall of, 338. 
Constitution of United States, 

leading provisions of, 462, 463 ; 

ratification of, 461, 462. 
Constitutional Convention, 459, 

460, 462. 



526 



SCHOOL HISTORY 



Consuls first elected in Rome, 
161. 

Corinth, destruction of, by Rome, 

208. 
" Cornelia," mother of the Gracchi, 

223. 
Cor'tez, work of, 384. 
Cotton, culture of, 443. 
Cotton gin, invention of, 488. 
County government at South, 

441. 
Criticism, effects of, on learning, 

339 ; rise of, in Middle Ages, 

33 8 > 339- 

Croe'sus, 102. 

Crusades, causes of, 293 ; charac- 
ter of, 307; effects of, 309-315; 
first movements of, 297 ; imple- 
ments of warfare used in, 301- 
304, 306 ; influence of, on his- 
tory, 293 ; influence of, upon 
learning, 311 ; motives leading 
to, 294, 295 ; relation of, to dis- 
covery of America, 312-314,425; 
warfare in, 304, 305. 

Culture, spread of, 344. 

Cuneiform writing, 71. 

Cyrus, ruler of Persia, 102. 

Darius, death of, 106; letter of, 
67 ; moves against Greece, 99 ; 
raises another army, 105 ; why 
angry with Athens, 103. 

De Soto, work of, 385. 

Dead Sea, 36. 

Death, Egyptian view of, 28. 

Debt, cause of, in early Rome, 
166; punishment for, in Rome, 
166. 



Delian League, 112. 

Delos, island of, 113. 

Delphi, 109; oracle of, 83. 

Democracy, meaning of, 120. 

Dictator, power of, in Rome, 161. 

Diet of Germany, 361. 

Dining, early method of, in Greece, 

89, 90. 
Di-o-ny'si-us, 121. 
Distaff described, 12. 
Do-do'na, oracle of,. 83. 
Doma, Grecian, 87. 
Donjon Keep, 281, 282. 
" Doubles " among the Egyptians, 

29. 
Douglas, Stephen A., views of, 

on slavery, 505. 
Dove, ill omen of, 6, 7. 
Dred Scott Decision, 507. 
Dru'sus attacks the Germans, 

241. 
Dutch, conquered by England, 

445; settlement of, in New 

York, 445. 

"Earth and Water," tokens of, 

103. 
Education, method of, among the 

Hebrews, 46. 
E-ge'ria, fountain of, 163 ; love of, 

for Numa, 160. 
Egypt, description of country, 18 ; 

permanent contribution to civi- 
lization by, 32. 
Egyptians, why not a commercial 

people, 19. 
Elephants, crossing Alps, 187 ; in 

Hannibal's army, 185. 
Elis, country of, 122. 



INDEX 



527 



Elizabeth, relation of, to English 
Reformation, 372, 374. 

Emancipation Proclamation, 513. 

Embalming, among Egyptians, 28 ; 
relation of, to science of medi- 
cine, 29. 

Embargo, 482; effect of, 480. 

Emigration to United States, 498. 

England, central government in, 
321 ; comparison of history in, 
with France and Spain, 321, 
322 ; conquest of, by Teutons, 
2 55> growth of liberty in, 316- 
327 ; important documents in 
history of, 323 ; invasion of, by 
Danes, 321; principles of liberty 
in, 323 ; settlement of, 320. 

English colonies, comparison of, 
with Spanish and French, 449, 
451 ; location of, 426; in America, 
423; in America, discussion of, 
423-464 ; in America, environ- 
ment of, 426; independence of, 
428; independence in, 431. 

English liberties, relation of, to 
American history, 326, 327. 

Eph'ors at Sparta, 100. 

Ep-i-cu'rus, teaching of, 213. 

E-ras'mus, work of, 340, 351. 

E-rech-the'um, temple of, 115. 

Erie Canal, construction of, 496. 

Euphrates in relation to Phoeni- 
cian trade, 59. 

Europe, physical features of, 238. 

" Eye of a Needle," 40. 

Fabius, made dictator in Rome, 

192 ; policy of, 192. 
Farming by early Egyptians, 22. 



Farms, early Roman, size of, 156. 

Feasts, Roman, description of, 
215; cost of, 216. 

Federalist Party, death of, 492. 

Federalists, 471; attitude toward 
War of 1812, 482. 

Festivals among the Hebrews, 40. 

Feudalism, among French colo- 
nists in America, 412 ; decay of, 

290 ; enlargement of, 278 ; local 
government in, 279; origin of, 
275, 276; in Spain, 380, 381; 
influence of, upon history, 275- 

291 ; influence of, on civiliza- 
tion, 275; value of, to civiliza- 
tion, 290, 291. 

Fief, meaning of, 277. 

Fire, early method of obtaining, 43. 

First Grade, aim of work in, 3. 

Flatboat, 481. 

Florence, description of, ^33- 

Food, articles of, among early 
Greeks, 90, 91. 

Foreign relations during Wash- 
ington's administration, 473. 

Fourth Grade work, scope of, 
146. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 449-451. 

Free schools in America, 448. 

French and Indian War, 420, 450, 
451 ; importance of, 420; treaty 
closing, 420, 421. 

French colonial government, com- 
parison of, with English, 418, 419. 

French colonies, education in, 
414 ; favorable position of, 407, 
408; government in, 416-419; 
leading ideas in, 409 ; trade in, 
409. 



528 



SCHOOL HISTORY 



French colonists in America, 

religion of, 413. 
French colony, typical settlement 

of, 410, 411. 
French settlements in America, 

407-422. 
Frey, 248. 
Fugitive slaves, assistance to, 504, 

5°5- 

Games, Olympic, 99. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 495. f 

Gauls, Hannibal among, 186. 

Genoa, relation of, to Columbus, 
382. 

Geography, in Greece, 77 ; effects 
of Crusades upon knowledge of, 
312; influence of, over Spanish 
colonies, 383-391; influence of, 
on colonial settlement, 426. 

George III, attitude of, toward Eng- 
lish colonies in America, 453. 

Germans, capacity of, for civiliza- 
tion, 258; change in culture of, 
254; characteristics of, 241; 
conquest of Rome by, 251-257 ; 
early assembly among, 246 ; 
early bravery of, 245 ; early cul- 
ture of, 242 ; early government 
of, 245; early houses of, 242, 
243 ; early lack of, in education, 
249 ; early religion of, 249 ; 
holding land among, 244, 245 ; 
love of liberty of, 318; respect 
of, for women, 243 ; southern 
migrations of, 254-257 ; villages 
of, 244. 
Germany, growth of Reformation 
in > 354-3 6 7- 



Godfrey of Bouillon, 308. 

Gold, discovery of, in California, 

5° 2 > 5°3- 
Grac'chi, story of, 221, 222. 

Grain, grinding of, in Rome, 157 ; 
in early Rome, 157. 

Gran-i'cus, battle of, 132. 

Great men among the Hebrews, 
44. 

Great pyramid, ascent of, 31, 32. 

Grecian, harbors, relation of, to 
commerce, 79 ; islands, 78 
mountains, description of, 80 
relation of, to Greek history, 81 
topography, valleys, 80. 

Grecians compared with Persians 
as fighters, 106. 

Greece, animals of, 84 ; colonists 
of, 100 ; early farming in, 92 ; 
easy of defense, cause of, 82 ; 
geography of, 240 ; geography 
of, compared with Egypt and 
Babylon, 77 ; greatest beauty of, 
1 1 2 ; infancy of , 86 ; lessons of civ- 
ilization taught by, 125 ; moun- 
tains of, 79 ; position of, with 
reference to Phoenicia, 78 ; rela- 
tion of soil of, to Grecian civili- 
zation, 82 ; sea-coast of, 79 ; 
size of, 79 ; soil of, 82 ; stone 
in, 84 ; temperature of, 84 ; 
temperature of, relation to 
Greek civilization, 84 ; youth 
of, 99. 
Greek, difficulties of studying, 
227 ; language, learning of, by 
Romans, 209 ; knowledge of, in 
Middle Ages, 337 ; students of, 
in Rome, 209; use of, in Middle 



INDEX 



529 



Ages, 330 ; house, in early time, 
88 ; house, in early time, furni- 
ture of, 88, 89; play, description 
of, 121; religion, relation of 
geography to, 83; theater, 134; 
players in, 121. 

Greek cities, founded by Alexan- 
der, 138 ; revolt of, in Asia 
Minor, 103 ; jealousy of, 128 ; 
selfishness of, no. 

Greek culture, how spread over 
the East, 138; extent of in- 
fluence of, 144. 

Greeks, bravery of, at Marathon, 
104 ; training of, 106 ; what 
they learned from the Phoeni- 
cians, 97. 

Green quoted on importance of 
Parliament, 325. 

Gunpowder, first used, 290 ; influ- 
ence of, 345. 

Gymnasium, exercises in, 116; in 
Athens, 116. 

Habitants, French, 411. 

Ha-mil'car, death of, 182; driven 
from Sicily, 181 ; plans of, 181 ; 
in Sicily, 180. 

Hamilton, Alexander, work of, 472. 

Hannibal, after Second Punic 
War, 196, 197 ; army of, 184 ; 
size of, 188; conquests of, in 
Spain, 182 ; early training of, 
182 ; eye, loss of, 192 ; in Italy, 
after Cannae, 194; greatness of, 
200; last years of, 197 ; march 
of, from Spain to Rome, 184- 
188 ; march of, through north- 
ern Italy, 191 ; military qualities 



of, 182; oath of, 181; plans 
of, for attacking Rome, 183 ; 
policy of, in Italy, 192; ruse 
of, to deceive Fabius, 193. 

Hanno, at Rhone, 186. 

"Harold," amusements of, 94, 
95 ; visit of, to country, 92, 93 ; 
visit of, to Greece, 86-98. 

Harrison, W. H., elected Presi- 
dent, 499. 

Hartford Convention, 483. 

Has'dru-bal, death of, 196; march 
of, to Italy, 195 ; in Spain, 184. 

Hebrews, chief ideas taught by, 
47 ; daily life among, 38 ; din- 
ing-room and dining of, 43 ; 
early life of, 34; in Egypt, 35; 
lamps of, 42 ; literature, begin- 
ning of study of, 338 ; relation of 
environment of, to their history, 
36 ; sketch of history of, 44-45. 

Heries-pont, crossing of, by 
Xerxes, 107. 

Hesiod, 99. 

Hestia, sacrifice to, 96. 

Hi'e-ro-glyph'ic writing, 69. 

Hip'pi-as, 104; expelled from 
Athens, 102. 

Hiram of Phoenicia, 54 ; educa- 
tion of, 56 ; helps to build the 
Jewish temple, 64. 

" Hirus, " trip of, to 4he sea-coast, 
96, 97. 

History, comparison of, to a 
stream, 316; general view as 
to course of, 316-318 ; purpose 
of study of, 516, 517. 

Holidays, number of, in Rome, 
218. 



53Q 



SCHOOL HISTORY 



Holy of Holies, entered by Kufu, 
20-23 I m Egyptian temple, 25 ; 
in Hebrew temple, 35, 36. 

Homer, 91, 94, 99. 

Ho-ra'ti-us, defense of bridge by, 
161. 

Ho'rus, god of, 28. 

Hospitals for crusaders, 295. 

Huguenots, character of, 369 ; 
treatment of, in French colo- 
nies, 414, 415. 

Humanists, work of, 333. 

Huns, attacks of, against Goths, 
258. 

Hypostyle Hall, in Egypt, 25. 

Iliad, 98, 130. 

Immortality, how thought of by 
Egyptians, 28. 

Independence, Declaration of, 454. 

Indians, allies of French, 410; 
conversion of, 414; education 
of, 449 ; in Spanish America, 
386, 387 ; treatment of, by Span- 
ish missionaries, 399, 400 ; wor- 
ship among, 68. 

Ink, ancient, 70. 

Inquisition, Spanish, 367. 

Internal improvements, 496. 

Isis, 26 ; worship of, 27. 

Is'sus, battle of the, 133. 

Italy, building stone in, 152; geog- 
raphy of, 147-153; importance 
of, in Crusades, 312, 313; rela- 
tion of, to Renascence, 331. 

Jackson, Andrew, political prin- 
ciples of, 492 ; President of 
United States, 493. 



Ja'nus, 160. 

Jefferson, President of United 

States, 478. 
Jerusalem, houses in, 41 ; how 

lighted, 41 ; importance of, to 

Crusades, 294 ; market square 

in, 40 ; traveling in, 40. 
Jesus, place of his labors, 46 ; 

quoted, 40. 
John, King of England, 322. 
Jordan River, description of, 36. 
Joseph in Egypt, 22, 
" Judah," Jewish life of, 42-44. 
Ju-gur'tha, 224. 

Kansas, admission of, 506 ; migra- 
tion to, 506. 

Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 505, 506. 

King of Egypt, how regarded by 
people, 20. 

Kings, last of, in Rome, 161. 

Knight, description of, in Middle 
Ages, 284-286. 

" Kufu," daily life of, 18-26 ; tomb 
of, 30, 31. 

Lafayette, 455. 

Learning, how transmitted, 143 ; 

method of its growth, 75; state 

of, in Middle Ages, 330. 
Lebanon Mountains, 36, 54. 
Le-on'i-das, 82 ; at Thermopylae, 

108. 
Libraries, ancient, 74; size of, in 

Middle Ages, 336. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 507, 508, 511 ; 

death of, 513, 514. 
Literature, effects of Crusades 

upon, 311, 312. 



INDEX 



531 



Lombardy, plain of, 148. 

Longfellow quoted, 3. 

Lord, duty of, to vassal, 277, 278. 

Louis XIV, purpose of, in Ameri- 
can colonization, 415, 416. 

Louisiana Purchase, 421, 479,480. 

Loyalists, 454. 

Luther, Martin, death of, 366 ; 
discussion of, with Eck, 360; 
early life of, 355-357; journey 
of, to Worms, 358, 359; leading 
traits of, 357, 362, 363, 365- 
367 ; sympathy of, for common 
people, 359, 362, 367 ; work of, 
355-367- 

Macedonia, description of, 1 27 ; 

people of, 127. 
Magna Charta, how secured, 323. 
Ma-ne'tho, 20. 

Mangonel, description of, 305. 
Manna, pot of, 49. 
Mantelets, description of, 305. 
Manuscripts, erasing of writing of, 

in monasteries, 271. 
Mar'a-thon, battle of, 104; results 

of battle of, 104. 
Marco Polo, 312. 
Mar-do'ni-us, no. 
Mariner's compass, use of, 311. 
" Marius," Roman boy, life of, 156. 
Marius, Roman general, life of, 

224-226. 
Market-place in early Greece, 93. 
Mars, sacrifices to, 165; worship 

of, 164. 
Maryland, early history of, 443, 

444 ; religious freedom in, 444. 
Mayflower Compact, 427. 



Med'i-ci, family of, relation of, to 
Renascence, 335. 

Messages, early method of send- 
ing, 67. 

Me-tau'rus, battle of, 194. 

Mexican War, 404, 500, 501. 

Mi'cha-el An'ge-lo, work of, 334. 

Mi'das, story of, 133. 

Middle colonies, 444; education 
in, 446 ; government in, 446 ; 
type of the Union, 447. 

Mill, ancient, for grinding flour, 43. 

Mil-ti / a-des, 104; death of, 108. 

Mining in Spanish-American col- 
onies, 392. 

Missionaries, work of, 317. 

Mississippi River, importance of, 
480. 

Missouri Compromise, 491, 492. 

Modern nations, foundations of, 

3 J &> 3*9- 
Mohammedanism, rise of, 293. 

Mohammedans, learning of, 294. 

Monastery, books in, 269 ; charac- 
ter of, in Renascence period, 
340; closing of, 369, 371; daily 
life in, 266; decay of, 271, 272; 
education in, 266; entrance of, 
into feudal system, 278 ; good 
effects of, 272; increase of 
wealth of, 262 ; medical art in, 
267; original histories in, 270; 
value of, 272, 273 ; writing and 
copying in, 268. 

Monastic church, description of, 
262. 

Monasticism, early ideas of, 259; 
in Spanish colonies, 398, 399 ; 
vows of, 265. 



532 



SCHOOL HISTORY 



Monks, conditions of becoming, 
265 ; dress of, 265 ; early labors 
of, 260, 261 ; traits of, 267. 

Monroe, James, President of 
United States, 484. 

Monroe Doctrine, 404, 484, 485. 

Moon, how regarded by Spartans, 
103. 

Moore, Thomas, work of, 351, 352. 

Moors in Spain, 380. 

Moses, leader of Hebrews, 35. 

Mum'mi-us conquers Corinth, 209. 

Mummy, Egyptian, 28. 

Napoleon, plan of, to colonize 
Mississippi valley, 421. 

" Nar-cis'sa," 90 ; marriage of, 91. 

Nation, development of, 468-519. 

Nations, sources of strength of, 
346. 

" National Republican " Party, 
492. 

National Road, 496 ; construction 
of, 491. 

Negro, our duty to, 515. 

Nero, treatment of Christians by, 
232. 

New England, compact settlement 
in, 430, 431 ; government in, 
433' 435 > g r °wth of manufac- 
turing, 483; landholding in, 
436; source of liberties in, 430. 

New England colonies, education 
in, 435, 436 ; government in, 

43 2 -434- 
New Testament, translation of, by 

Erasmus, 340, 353. 
Newspapers in America, 448. 
Nic'o-lo de Nic'o-li, work of, 335. 



Nile, cause of overflow, 19; descrip- 
tion of, 18,19; the " Welcome " 
to, 26. 

Nile valley, irrigation of, 21. 

Normans in England, 321. 

Northwest Territory, how secured, 
458. 

Nullification, doctrine of, 498 ; in 
South Carolina, 493. 

Numa, character of rule of, 159, 
160. 

Nu-mid'i-an cavalry, skill of, 185. 

Objects, use of, in expressing 

thought, 68. 
Ohio Company, 458. 
Olive oil, use of, for butter, 156. 
O-lym'pi-a, games at, 122. 
Olympian games, description of, 

123; honor of winning in, 123; 

those who attended, 122, 123. 
Olympus, Mount of, home of the 

gods, 8^- 
" Omnibus Bill," 503, 504. 
Oracles, Grecian, 83. 
Oregon Territory, acquisition of, 

502. 
O-si'ris, Egyptians' belief in, 19; 

how regarded by priests, 27 ; 

sacrifices to, 19. 
Os'tra-cism, 105. 
Oxford University, study at, 351. 

Painting among ancient Greeks, 95. 
Painting and sculpture, rise of, in 

Middle Ages, 341. 
Palestine, description of country, 

35; in time of Solomon, 37; 

plants and animals of, 37. 



INDEX 



533 



Paper, how made in Egypt, 23 ; 

kinds of, in monasteries, 268 ; 

linen, first made, 350. 
Papyrus paper, descriptions of, 70 ; 

protection of rolls of, 7 1; scarcity 

of, in Middle Ages, 270 ; sold in 

Jerusalem, 40 ; used at Alexan- 
dria, 142. 
Papyrus plant, description of, 18; 

use of for boats, 20. 
Parchment, description of, 73. 
Parliament, first meeting of, 325 ; 

growth of, 324-327 ; second 

meeting of, 325. 
Parnassus, Mount of, 79, 80. 
Par-rha'si-us, 209. 
Par'the-non, description of, 115. 
Parties, origin of, in America, 470, 

471. 
Patricians in Rome, 164. 
Pay for public service in Athens, 119. 
Pe-neKo-pe, 89. 
Pennsylvania, roadway to the 

West, 447. 
Per'i-cles, leader of Athens, 113. 
Per'seus, King of Macedon, 206. 
Persia, extent of empire of, 102. 
Persian army, description of, 133 ; 

implements of warfare of, 136; 

size of, 131. 
Persian troops, description of, 107. 
Peter the Hermit, relation of, to 

Crusades, 289. 
Petrarch, work of, 332. 
Phalanx, description of, 128. 
Phid'i-as, Greek sculptor, 105, 209; 

work of, 115. 
Phi-dip'pi-des, 102, 103; trip to 

Sparta, 99. 



Philip, death of, 129; hostage at 
Thebes, 128 ; war against 
Greece, 128. 

Philosopher, meaning of, 117. 

Phoenicia, 56, 57, 60, 63 ; fruits of, 
55; geography of, 54; religion 
of, 64, 65 ; relation of geography 
of, to government, 77; size of, 
55; slaves of, 56. 

Phoenician civilization, relation 
of, to Greece and Egypt, 64; 
relation of, to history, 65. 

Phoenicians, colonies of, 17 1; 
early teachers of Greeks, 95 ; 
helped to build temple in Jeru- 
salem, 47 ; improvement of 
alphabet by, 74; trade of, 78. 

Phonetic writing, 69. 

Pictures, used for letters, 23; use 
of, in writing, 68. 

Pilgrims, early history of, 427. 

Pi-sis'tra-tus, tyrant at Athens, 101. 

Pi-zar'ro, work of, 384. 

Plain about Rome, 1 55. 

Planter, southern, home of, 442,443. 

Pla-tae'a, battle of, no. 

Plebeians, 166 ; triumph of, 168. 

Plow, description of Egyptian, 
22 ; of Roman, 157. 

Pnyx, assembly in, 119. 

Po River, 148; mouth of, 149. 

Poets, of Greece, 99; of Rome, 231. 

Pom'pey, rule of, at Rome, 229. 

Ponce de Leon, 384. 

Por'se-na, attack of, against Rome, 
161. 

Pottery, early method of mould- 
ing and burning, 13, 14; early 
attempt to beautify, 14. 



534 



SCHOOL HISTORY 



" Praise of Folly," influence of, 

352- 
President, method of electing, 

477- 

Printing press, at the South, 442 ; 
development of, 342; early 
work of, 343; invention of, 
342 ; in New England, 436. 

Prop-y-lae'a, description of, 114, 

US- 
Punic War, close of, 196, 197, 201. 

Puritans, inconsistencies of, 431, 
432 ; settlement of, in New Eng- 
land, 428, 429; Sunday observ- 
ance of, 431. 

Pyd'na, battle of, 206. 

Pylon, 25. 

Pyramid, description of, 31. 

Pyr'e-nees, crossing of, by Han- 
nibal, 184. 

Quakers, 446. 

Questions of the present, 515, 516. 

Ra, god of, 28. 

Races in Rome, 219. 

Railroads, beginning of, in United 
States, 497. 

Ram, bore, tower, description of, 
306. 

Reformation, causes leading to, 
348-350 ; discussion of, 348- 
375; progress of, in chief Euro- 
pean countries, 367-37 1 ; results 
of, 374-377 ; transplanted to 
America, 378. 

Religious freedom, at the South, 
443 ; growth of, in English colo- 
nies, 432. 



Renascence, 125; meaning of, 
3 2 9> 33° ; movement of, 329. 

Republican Party, 508. 

Revolution, American, close of, 
455; effect of, 455, 456 ; princi- 
ples upon which fought, 453. 

Rhea Silvia, marriage of, 1 59. 

Rhone, crossing of, by Hannibal, 
186. 

Rice, culture of, 443. 

Rivers, in Greece, 81 ; in Europe, 

2 39- 

Roads, in Palestine, 39 ; in Phoe- 
nicia, 78, 79 ; in Rome, 152, 169 ; 
influence of, on Roman govern- 
ment, 169, 223. 

Roman civilization, spread of, 

231, 33 2 - 

Romans, amusements of, 214, 215; 
armor and weapons of, 1 88-191 ; 
army of, 191 ; great lessons 
taught by, 195. 

Rome, central position of, 155, 
204; colonies of, 169; contri- 
bution of, to civilization, 234, 
235; founding of, 154; growth 
of, 162, 169, 170, 203; greed of, 
205; luxury of, 213; power of, 
to rule, 204 ; Teutonic conquest 
of, 254. 

Rom'u-lus, death and worship of, 
1 59 ; King of Rome, 1 59. 

Romulus and Remus, story of, 1 58. 

Runes, 250. 

" Ruth," Hebrew education of, 
43-44- 

Sabbath among the Hebrews, 46. 
Sacred Mount, secession to, 164. 



INDEX 



535 



Sacrifices among the Hebrews, 

Sa-gun'tum, attack of, 183. 

Sailors, Phoenician, 57, 58. 

St. Benedict, rules of, 204. 

Sara-mis, battle of, 1 10. 

Sandals, 42. 

Sap'pho, 99. 

Sar'dis, burning of, 103 ; rebuild- 
ing of, 107. 

Schools, Mohammedan, 331. 

Scip'i-o, work of, 196, 197, 199. 

Scriptorium, description of, 269. 

" Scrolls " of the Hebrews, 45. 

Sculpture, Egyptian and Grecian, 
compared, 29. 

Sea of Galilee, 36. 

Seignior in French colonies, 410- 
412. 

Senate, early Roman, 164 ; wisdom 
of, 194; decline of, 224. 

Senators, Roman, dress of, 163 ; 
selection of, 159. 

Serfs, status of, 278. 

Seventh Grade, aim in, 378. 

Sheep in early Rome, 158. 

Shield of Mars, 160. 

Shows, gladiatorial, 220. 

Sicily, cities in, 180 ; description 
of, 179 ; "granary of Rome," 
179; products and value of, 178- 
180; surrendered to Rome, 181. 

Simon de Montfort, 433. 

Sixth Grade work, aim of, 292. ■ 

Slavery, in Athens, 124; in Rome, 
210-212; in United States, 485- 
491 ; in Virginia, 338. 

Slaves, trade in, in Carthage, 174; 
in Rome, 211. 



Small countries, great truths taught 

b Y> 53- 
Socrates, death of, 118, 119; 

method of, in teaching, 117, 118. 
Solomon, dedication of temple by, 

5 1 - 

Solon, legislation of, 100, 101 ; 

travels of, 101. 
Soothsayer in Greece, 95. 
South Carolina, attitude of, toward 

tariff, 493 ; secession of, 509. 

Southern colonies, education in, 

.441, 442 ; religion in, 441. 

Southern States, secession of, 510. 

Spain, decline of power in, 405, 

406 ; early history of, 402-405 ; 

government in, 381 ; motives of, 

in colonization, 383. 
Spanish colonies, in America, 

character of life in, 379-395 ; 

education in, 395 ; government 

in, 388, 389, 391 -; rebellion of, 

403 ; religion in, 396-399. 
Spanish possessions, extent of, 

400. 
Sparta, kings of, 100. 
Spar'ta-cus, rebellion of, against 

Rome, 212. 
Spartan league, 112. 
Sphinxes in Egypt, 25. 
Spindle, description of, 12. 
Spinning machine, ancient, 12. 
States, admission of, 490, 501. 
Steamboat, invention of, 481. 
Steps ascending the Acropolis, 

114. 
Stylus, 73. 
Sulla, cruelty of, 226, 227 ; death 

of, 227. 



536 



SCHOOL HISTORY 



Tariff, attitude of South toward, 472, 
489, 492 ; established by United 
States, 472 ; object of, 484. 

Tarquin expelled from Rome, 161. 

Taylor, Zachary, death of, 504 ; 
President of United States, 503. 

Telegraph, invention of, 499. 

Te-lem'a-chus, bravery of, 232. 

Temple, Egyptian, description of, 
24 ; Jewish, description of, 48, 
49 ; greatness of, 51-53. 

Ten Commandments, 49. 

Tennyson quoted, 143. 

Te'rah, 33. 

Teutons, attack of, against Rome, 
255; civilization of, 318; early 
life of, 238-257 ; love of free- 
dom among, 256, 257. 

Texas, acquisition of, 500. 

Tha'li-um in Greek house, 89, 95. 

The-mis'to-cles, advice of, to 
Athenians, 105. 

Ther-mop'y-lae, battle of, 108, 109. 

Thes'pi-ans, aid of, at Thermopylae, 
109. 

Third Grade work, scope of, 76. 

Thor, 248. 

Thoth, the god of, 23. 

Tiber, harbor at mouth of, 155. 

Ti-be'ri-us Grac'chus, work of, 222. 

Tobacco, culture of, in Virginia, 

438- 
Tombs, Egyptian, 29, 30. 

Tournament, description of, 287, 

288. 
Township government in New 

England, 433, 434. 
Trade, Phoenician, importance of, 

62. 



Trade-routes, ancient, 58 ; in time 
of Crusades, 310, 313. 

Traditions, meaning of, 67. 

Tras-i-me / nus, battle of, 192. 

Tribunes, origin of, in Rome, 165. 

Trireme, description of, 57. 

Triumph, Roman, description of, 
207, 208 ; on what condition 
given, 208. 

Troy, land of, 131. 

Turks, relation of, to Crusades, 
295, 296. 

" Twelve Tables " of the law, 167. 

Tyndale, translation of the Bible 
by, 372. 

Tyr, bravery of, 248. 

Tyrant, meaning of, in Greece, 101. 

Tyre, location of, 56, 64 ; destruc- 
tion of, 135, 136, 172 ; fortifica- 
tions of, 135. 

Tyrians, slavery of, 135. 

Union, growth of, 451, 456 ; nature 
of, 468. 

United States Bank, establishment 
of, 473, 494. 

United States, capitals of, 479; 
condition of, 509 ; extent of, in 
1789, 469; industrial develop- 
ment in, 495, 496, 502 ; mental 
development in, 502; mint of, 

474- 
.Universities, American, 448; 
growth of, 350; study in, 350, 

35 1 - 
Ur, location of, 33. 

Urban II, relation of, to Crusades, 

297, 298. 

" Utopia," influence of, 351. 



INDEX 



537 



Val-haHa, hall of, 247. 

Vandals, 255. 

Vassal, ceremony of making, 277; 
duty of, 277. 

Venice, location of, 149. 

Vesta, priestess of, 163 ; worship 
of, 165. 

Virginia, court-day in, 440; early 
settlement of, 437, 438; liberty 
in, 440 ; representative govern- 
ment in, 439. 

Virginia and Kentucky Resolu- 
tions, 477, 478. 

Volga River, description of, 5, 6. 

" Volume," early meaning of, 142. 

War, Cuban, 516 ; Greco-Persian, 
no; implements of, in Rome, 
198 ; of 18 12, 482, 483. 

Washington, George, advocates 
western expansion, 458, 459 ; 
death of, 476 ; chosen leader in 
Revolutionary War, 455 ; inau- 
guration of, as President, 470. 

Weaving, early methods of, 12. 

Western emigration, 481. 

Western growth, 475, 476. 



Western settlers, character of, 
476. 

Wheat, threshing and cleaning of, 
in primitive times, 22. 

Whig Party, origin of, 492. 

" Wild Cat" Banks, 494, 495. 

William and Mary, principles of 
liberty advocated by, 324. 

Williams, Roger, founding cf 
Rhode Island by, 429, 430. 

Wine used by Greeks, 91. 

Winthrop, John, 428. 

Wodin, 247. 

Worms, Diet of, and Luther, 362. 

Writing, errors in, in Middle Ages, 
269 ; in early times, 342 ; mate- 
rials of, in ancient times, 70, 7 1 ; 
in monastery, 268. 

Xerx'es, army of, 106; flight of, 
to Asia, 1 10 ; King of Persia, 
106 ; march of, against Greece, 
107. 

Za'ma, battle of, 196. 
Zeus, 122. 
Zeux'is, 209. 



1902 



